The Death of Ascheriit
by Vathara
Summary: Twenty years is a long time, especially in the Forest of Death. How might Ascheriit have survived? May be AU, but true to canon through book 1 at least.
1. Chapter 1

**The Death of Ascheriit**

A/N: Übel Blatt and all associated characters (especially Köinzell, darn it), not mine. Just playing a little with some of the hints of backstory in Vol. 0. Meaning this may well be jossed before the end of the manga. If so, ah well, this was fun anyway. ;) M-rated, like the manga; this is a gruesome little bunny, yes.

* * *

_Fall, 3972 A.D._

_I'll kill them. I swear I'll kill them_.

His vision was a red haze; no surprise, given one of the last things he clearly remembered was that tearing pain and _emptiness_ as Glenn had torn out his eye. The real surprise was that he could see anything at all. If the fall into the gorge hadn't killed him, the loss of blood from severed limbs and tortured flesh _should_ have.

But he was still breathing, though who knew for how long. The taste of blood was thick and warm in his mouth. And... oddly sweet.

He swallowed, feeling chewed raw flesh twitch as it slid down his throat. _Was I... fighting someone else?_

He didn't remember getting close enough to any of the Seven to bite them. Granted, things had been... less than clear, at the end. But they'd been afraid of him, he remembered that. That was why Glenn had taken his eye, and Schtemwölech had taken his arm, and-

He was breathing too fast. Had to stop that. Slow the heartbeat, slow the bleeding. Only chance he had.

_What chance? No cautery, no tourniquet; no way to get leverage on one if I had it. I'm going to die here. I should already_ be _dead_.

He bent his head into the scent of still-warm blood, and tore off another slippery hunk of muscle. Meat was food; food was life. He wasn't dead yet.

_They betrayed us._

_They murdered us. _

_They left me last, they made it slow, I have to live to kill them_-

He was tearing at the flesh below him like a starved madman. Fair enough; he _was_ mad. Facing the enemies of the Empire hadn't been enough to shatter his mind, but what their comrades had done, even the Emperor's own-

He had a sudden desire to sneeze.

_What the...?_

Feathers. Tickling his nose, snared by that sharp indrawn breath. Reflex moved an arm to scratch at it. Only there was no arm, only a stump still sluggishly bleeding-

No. Had bled. The blood was just slightly darker. Drying.

_Impossible. Wounds like that don't close on their own, they don't_-

And another breath had drawn a silvery feather back against his nose. He wrinkled it not to sneeze. What kind of bird had he been eating-?

_Not a bird_.

Clouds were playing hide and seek with the moons, but a little light shone through.

_Not a bird at all_.

Staring at the bones and feathers of a fairy's wing, Ascheriit started screaming.

* * *

_I have to live_.

The maimed swordsman blinked at the dawn, throat raw from more than screaming. Turned out fairy flesh didn't want to stay eaten. Who knew?

He'd wrestled it back down, somehow. The harm was already done. Whatever he'd... killed...

_Devoured. In an insane frenzy. Like a beast. Worse than a beast_.

The fairy was already dead. And horrible as the thought was, he was currently out of other options. He could barely move, much less hunt. If he was going to heal at all, he had to have... food.

_I'm probably going to die here. But I have to try. I have to live long enough to tell someone_-

High in blue skies, two thin curves of snow caught his eye.

_It's day, but the moons are up. _

_...They're pretty_.

For a moment there was no horror. No war. Just the faint touch of moonlight, like a cool cloth on a fever.

_This... isn't so bad_...

In his gut, something twitched.

_Oh great. It's trying to escape again_. Nerving himself, Ascheriit glanced at the bloody mess where his gut had been.

The good news was, there didn't seem to be any more blood. Somehow, the gaping hole had pulled mostly closed, only a few raw edges still red as a dry wound.

The bad news was... those raw edges were moving.

_What the hell is happening?_

Though damn every one of those seven to all the hells, he knew what it looked like.

_Wischtech sorcery! _

The Land of Shadows used elvish and fairy blood - and worse things - to spellcraft ordinary humans into curse-bound monsters. He'd met his first defending Meister Ludift when he was twelve. He'd fought and given mercy to all too many others since.

_No one enspelled me, there's no curse nodes - I won't be a monster! I won't! _

The writhing in what had been severed limbs said otherwise. Ascheriit closed his eye, and prayed.

_If I heal enough to move, let me heal enough to die_.

He didn't at all have the confidence that he would. It took a phenomenal will for Wischtech victims to fight the cursed urges. About the only thing that might save people when the murderous rage drowned him was the simple fact that there weren't any _here_.

Teeth clenched against the urge to scream, Ascheriit waited.

...And waited.

Grimaced, as the sun rose higher and stung his face.

_I'm thirsty_.

He could still feel writhing where limbs had been, but his gut seemed to have calmed. He even felt... hungry. Not for meat. Bread. A sweet pie. Even the tooth-breaking hardtack of trail rations.

No curse pulling at him. No slavish thirst for human blood. Just his own numb, exhausted fear.

...And the oddest sense that as long as there was moonlight, nothing could be too terribly wrong.

Dazed, Ascheriit opened his eye.

_The moons pull on water. Follow the moonlight. Find water_.

It shouldn't have made a difference. Sunlight was far brighter than any moon. Yet he almost thought he saw a faint glow where light brushed the leaves.

_If I'm not murdering people, then - then I need to live._

_Water_.

He was not looking too closely at the unnatural flesh sealing his wounds. He could crawl. That was enough.

* * *

_Seep spring_, Ascheriit concluded, looking at the tiny bubbles where the water sheeted out from the sandy side of the gorge. _Water should be safe_.

The water tasted like sand, wet leaves, a hint of pine from a sprig of needles that floated by. Not like blood at all. Ascheriit drank down as much as he could, letting the cool liquid soothe his aching throat.

_Water is good. Water doesn't come with a person attached_.

Caught by a glimmer of white, Ascheriit stared.

Seep springs still flowed, if slowly. And it was shadowy here. He couldn't see much of a reflection.

_More than enough_.

Black hair had bleached to unnatural white, straggling over his face. His eyes... well, one was still there, even if the shadowed color looked off. The other didn't look as bad as it probably should. The torn eyelid seemed to have sealed itself over the socket, and from what he knew of battle-wounds, that was likely the best outcome he could hope for. An open eye-socket was just asking for infection to set in, and his head was messed up enough without adding delirium to the pile.

_I wish I were delirious. If this were just some fever-dream_-

Wishes wouldn't fix this. Wishes never fixed anything.

Deliberately, Ascheriit glanced at what had been his right arm. _At least it's not bleeding_.

From the writhing, he'd halfway expected tentacles. Plenty of Wischtech creatures had tentacles. Or worse.

But there was just a lumpy end where the wound had been. The skin was pale, scar-shiny, with a few goose-prickles like a plucked chicken. But that was it. It didn't look natural... yet it didn't look like Wischtech either.

_If it's not Wischtech, what happened to me?_

Pale skin. Fairy-pale. With bumps that looked like they _could have_ held feathers.

_I... ate a fairy. And that looks like... _

_No. Think about surviving. I've got a water source. Now I need to find some shelter, and think about food_-

The world whirled suddenly, exhaustion crushing down like a giant's hand.

_The moons are setting. _

_How do I know that?_

Fighting the dizziness, Ascheriit crawled up from the spring to drier ground. There. A hollow near a tree, where last fall's leaves had gathered. It might be enough cover to save him from hypothermia-

Blackness dragged him under.

_Dear gods, please don't let me eat anyone_ else...

* * *

Something tickled across his face, like feet made of feathers.

About to yawn and stretch, Ascheriit froze, eye to beady eight eyes of the owner of those tickling feet. _Spider. Big spider. Go eat a_ bird _sized spider_. "Get off me!"

So his voice squeaked. He'd defy Güsstav not to squeak when she had a _godsdamned huge spider_ feeling up her face-

_Güsstav is dead_.

And the spider was retreating. Fortunately. He didn't think he'd be a match for it right now. Ascheriit blew out a relieved breath, and brought up a hand to wipe strands of web off his face-

Froze, at the touch of flesh on flesh.

_Not a hand. Exactly_.

The wounded stump had lengthened, sprouting nubs as tiny as kitten toes.

_That's... different_.

He ought to look at his other limbs. But he couldn't quite find the courage.

_Check the gut wound first anyway. If that goes south, nothing else will make a difference_.

The skin there seemed to have drawn together as well, leaving a faint scar. There was a more ragged gash of flesh under his torn tunic, near his heart. That one was shocking; he couldn't even remember who might have stabbed him there...

_Why does my tunic look so long? _

The cloth should have reached to mid-thigh. Now - it wasn't easy to be sure, but fabric flapped loose around him almost to his knees.

_Wischtech victims don't shrink_, Ascheriit thought, stunned. _They grow extra limbs; they grow monstrous and huge from dark magic. They don't shrink!_

No curse-nodes. No horrific urges to maim and slaughter everything that moved. And he hadn't eaten anyone else in his sleep.

_Maybe... maybe this isn't Wischtech_.

If it wasn't, he had no clue what it might be. But so far it looked like his survival wasn't going to lead to the mass slaughter of innocent people. So he'd better keep on surviving.

_Going to be a little tricky if I can't even cinch my pants up_.

First things first. More water, while he still had the energy to move. And then he needed to _think_.

* * *

_I was out for days?_

He'd quenched his thirst first; his throat had been desert-dry after he'd gotten moving. But afterward Ascheriit had taken the time to look at his old trail and his new one, checking how dirt had crumbled and other small beasts' tracks had mingled with his own.

No question about it. Between how soil and leaf-mold had dried and the number of overlapping tracks, he'd slept through at least two days. Possibly more.

_Well. I guess I needed it_.

Tunic wrapped around him as well as he could manage, Ascheriit sat on a log by the spring and shivered. He'd been helpless and unaware for _days_. Anything could have happened.

_Not that I could have done much if I'd been awake_, the swordsman thought bleakly. _Even if it doesn't hurt, I'm still crippled_.

_...It doesn't hurt_.

Ascheriit took a deep breath, paying attention to the rise and fall of now-thinner ribs. Healing flesh twinged. But more like wounds weeks old, instead of days.

_I'm healing. That - what I ate_-

He had to shy away from thinking of it too clearly. There was a fine line between sanity and madness on the battlefield, and he had a gnawing suspicion he might have already lurched across it.

_But I am healing. I might live. _

_Now what do I do?_

Good question. It was heading into autumn. So far the nights weren't cold enough that he'd frozen. Yet. That wouldn't last.

_There's no village this close to the Forest of Death, and I'm in no shape to move far_, Ascheriit thought. _I need to find some better shelter nearby_.

Then he'd need to find food. At least he hadn't lost his knack for foraging on this crazy mission. If he had a few hours awake, he was sure he could find something.

_As long as something else doesn't find me first_.

His breath quickened, as that same blue-black spider waved too many legs from the slope above. And it wasn't alone.

_A fairy! _

A tiny, dragonfly-winged girl, not at all like the feathered creature he'd devoured. But the anger in blazing green eyes was unmistakable. As was the threat from the needle-sharp dart strung on her tiny bow, tip glistening black.

_Poisoned. Well, at her size, I can't blame her_. "I'm... sorry," Ascheriit got out.

_At least my voice is still mine. Mostly_.

"I wasn't aware of what I was doing," the swordsman went on. "I know that's no excuse. You may seek vengeance on me, and you have that right. But," he had to swallow, as that tiny dart held a steady bead on his throat. "But the ones who hurt me murdered my friends. I swore I would have revenge." He stared back at her, determined to cling to that much. "If I live, I'm going to find them. And kill them. Then... then you can take whatever vengeance you need."

The dart didn't move.

_Does she even speak a human language? She's smart, very smart; too far away for me to grab her, close enough that I won't dodge easily. With that venom, even a scratch might be fatal. _

_Krentel would love to see this_.

The thought of the mage brought tears to his eye. Krentel would have been amazed. He would have asked questions. He would have taken notes until even the spider stared. And it hurt. It hurt that he'd never hear those questions again.

The bow lowered.

_What? _

The poison dart went back into a tiny quiver. The bow was slung, but not unstrung, across her shoulder. The little fairy held up one hand at a time, empty.

"You want a truce?" Ascheriit ventured. "Small lady of the forest, I'd like nothing better. I... I'm very tired. And confused."

Still silent, she flew over to him, hovering in front of his good eye. Stared deep into it, and landed on his shoulder.

Careful not to jar her, Ascheriit turned to face her.

Nodding, she put a hand against his cheek. It was small, and warm, and prickled like silk rubbed on wool.

_Magic. What is she doing? _

She'd asked for a truce. So long as nothing hurt, he'd let her have one.

_The moons are up again. I'll have the strength to do something if I have to_...

Like a whisper in the wind, he felt grief and pain. Not his own, still raw-edged with betrayal. This was wilder, wreathed about with curiosity like a plaited thorn-vine. And oddly delicate with worry, like mouse whiskers tickling his ear.

_What's going on?_

Small fingers brushed at a tear. The fairy brought her fingers to her nose, as if scenting the truth of his grief.

Shaking salt water away, the fairy reached up and hugged his cheek.

_Grief-to-grief. Sorrow. Watchfulness_.

Shaken, Ascheriit watched her dip her head in a nod, and launch into the air. In a blur of wings, she was gone.

The swordsman eyed the spider, still watching him from up the slope. "I have the oddest feeling I'm on parole."

Well. If he wasn't going to die yet, he'd better get to work on finding shelter.

* * *

A/N: It's canon that Köinzell can recover from dismemberment. Which gave me the odd idea that instead of Ascheriit killing and eating a fairy with just his teeth, a ruthless passing fairy healer with a grudge against Wischtech might have deliberately cut off some pieces of itself, let the moonlight heal them, and _left_. Given fairy grafts appear to overgrow most of the unfortunate victims, it's possible eating the flesh might have been necessary to allow a safer integration. Not that this would change anything in canon, given Ascheriit wouldn't know - but it seems a little more likely.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm going to have to cure a few more hides," Ascheriit muttered to the watch-spider, looking at how the leaves had faded in the past month. He'd have to make sure he wove more evergreen branches into the lean-to cover of his shelter, too; when the leaves fell, the wind would get a lot more bitter. "I just got toes back. I'd hate to lose them to frostbite."

They weren't exactly normal-looking toes, just as the fingers he'd grown weren't normal fingers. Too slender, with uneven lengths, and an unnerving tendency to try to sprout feathers if he didn't keep an eye on them. But everything worked, even if he felt as awkward as thirteen all over again. That would have to be enough.

_Only it can't be enough_, Ascheriit knew, leaning back against his rough woodpile. _I'm going after seven of the best warriors the Empire has. Teen-awkward with a sword will be nowhere near good enough_.

Not to mention the minor detail that he didn't currently have a sword. Or armor. Or supplies, beyond what had been in his belt pouch. Or any allies that wouldn't run screaming just from the sight of a mismatched scarred horror with unnatural white hair and demon-red eyes.

_Eyes_. Ascheriit blinked them both, desperately grateful. A swordsman with no depth perception was badly handicapped in a fight. He'd resigned himself to that knowledge, trying to prepare as best he could for the fact that he could never be absolutely sure where objects were in his flattened vision.

Then, about two weeks into his odd parole, he'd fallen into another of those unsettling three-day naps.

When he'd woken, starving-thin and thirsty all over again, he'd made his way to the spring... and stared at an eyelid sealed and _whole_. A sealed eyelid just beginning to peel open at one corner, like a nursling kitten's.

It'd taken all his will not to force the lids open then and there. But he'd mastered himself, and waited.

_I need two eyes. I don't care what kind of sorcery this is. I don't care what it looks like. I need my eyes! _

Two impatient days later, the last gumminess had crumbled away. He'd been able to blink, seeing the world in depth for the first time in weeks.

The scar across his eye was still livid from brow to cheek. But the eye itself was whole. Sighted. _Perfect_.

Terrifying, but perfect.

_What's happening to me? _

Ergnach had known some details of Wischtech magic, and Krentel had gathered more tales during their journey. Elvish and fairy blood were rumored to give power to those who knew how to tap it; power to heal, to endure, and even to destroy. According to Krentel, most successful mages had at least a trace of elvish blood in their veins.

_I think there's more than a trace in mine, now_.

He'd seen unfortunates grafted with fairy flesh in the Land of Shadows. The result was always the same: a human host driven mad by the unnatural growths overwhelming it, any sanity left in them begging to die.

"But that didn't happen to me," Ascheriit breathed, flexing uneven fingers. "Why?"

_A graft goes insane. Those who are born hybrids are fine. Odd, and they never lose people whispering about them... but they're_ whole.

He hadn't been born with elvish blood, so far as anyone knew. But there were stories of dark sorcerers who drank the blood of elves and fairies to gain more power, and he... he had done that. It hadn't been his intent, but he had.

_I did a lot more than that_.

Ascheriit flinched from the memory. He wouldn't run from it; it had happened, he was responsible. But he refused to dwell on it. Not yet. The watch-spider had just pounced on a late-straying grasshopper, and he hoped that wasn't an omen of what Dart had in mind.

Not that the archer fairy had ever given him her name. Or spoken to him at all. But he'd called her Dart when she'd brought him a stone knife, and she hadn't objected.

A stone knife. A handful of berries, and a finger pointed toward the steep hillside where he could find more. A fine mesh of a net, so he could snare small fish and frogs; not easily eaten by themselves, but cooked in a hollowed branch with hot stones, they made half-decent soup. All small gifts, but without them Ascheriit wasn't sure he would have made it. Not because of the food. Because it meant someone cared.

Whatever her reasons, Dart wanted him alive. After nearly being slaughtered by those he'd called comrades... he needed that. Desperately.

Though he feared he needed Dart for more than that. Whenever she appeared, he felt safe. As if he were with Master Ludift and Gurye all over again. Someone who would watch over him, warn him if he were getting in over his head, and make sure he had a chance to survive his mistakes.

_She feels like kin_.

It didn't make sense. But then, neither did collapsing whenever he'd overreached a little and the moons went down. Or that odd sense of peace and strength when they rose, as if the moonlight were a soothing balm on grief and fury. He still grieved. He still raged; there were moments he was bitterly glad he wasn't a mage, for surely he would have called down lightnings on himself to make the pain _stop_.

But so long as the moons were in the sky, he didn't want to die. Not quite.

_I will find them. I'll give them one chance - one - to explain what the hell they thought they were doing. _

_And then I'll kill them_.

How, he didn't know. Yet.

_I need to get stronger. Even if... even if I weren't_ altered, _I'm still not healed_.

_And I need a sword. And armor. And time to practice with them; Gurye would flatten any student who went into battle in the shape I'm in_-

He heard Dart before he saw her; a dragonfly-thrum in the wind, carrying her too fast for most humans to see.

Ascheriit held out a hand, palm down, in case she wanted to land. Likely she wouldn't; most of the time Dart only hovered near him once in a day, as if checking he was still in one piece.

This time, she landed.

"Lady Dart." He inclined his head to her. "Is there something you wish?"

Green eyes blinked at him. She nodded, dark green hair whispering over the tanned mouse-leather of her tunic. Pointed to the haft of the stone knife visible in his belt pouch, and at her own bow.

Lifted off, and waved _follow_.

"So we're heading into trouble," Ascheriit murmured. And almost smiled. "I could use a little trouble."

* * *

Four clawed toes. Pad-marks, spread wider than a war-dog's. And a loping stride that could run down a deer, or a man.

Ascheriit studied the tracks before them, and glanced up at his winged companion. "We appear to be hunting a lone wolf, my lady. Given I doubt you want a winter rug, might I ask why?"

Dart frowned at him. Swooped low, and gestured to the tracks; scooping one hand down, then lifting it, cupped, below her nose.

"Some kind of scent?" Curious, Ascheriit glanced about and listened to make certain they weren't being stalked in turn, then knelt awkwardly down, and sniffed. He knew what wolves smelled like; fur and musk and whatever offal they'd rolled in last-

_Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! _

He was on his feet, panting, knife gripped in a rock-steady hand.

_Bitter. Tainted. Wrong! _

"Wischtech," the swordsman snarled, wrinkling his nose as if he could sneeze the foulness back out. How had he ever missed such a stink, trailing monsters through the Land of Shadows?

_I didn't_.

Holding onto deliberate calm, Ascheriit made himself remember the journey, not the bitter end of it. He'd tracked monsters before. He'd smelled this before. Though if that scent had been one flute-note carried on the wind, this was a full regimental band playing _Hail to the Emperor_. Badly.

"You can smell Wischtech." Ascheriit glanced at the little fairy, then at his odd-lengthed fingers. "And so can I."

_What's happened to me? _

Dart gave him a raised eyebrow, unimpressed. Gestured impatiently toward the tracks.

"I understand that you want it dead, and I've no intention of arguing," Ascheriit stated, shoving any worry about what he was down for later. "But we'll have to watch our step. Wischtech can make beasts of men, yet it can also make the mind of a beast more than just an animal. We need to be cautious."

Dart rocked back in the air, startled. Hovered a moment; then seemed to decide, and landed on his shoulder.

Ascheriit held still as she touched his cheek, reaching inward with that prickle of magic.

_Worry. Watchfulness. Flee? _

Clearing his mind as if for a sword form, Ascheriit pictured monsters of the past. Trails that twisted and turned into a magical maze. Snares and pits appearing as if the forest itself had bared teeth against them. One track leading in to a hollow to disappear - before the whole pack of mutated beasts swarmed them.

Dart shuddered.

"I can fight them," Ascheriit murmured. "I will. But we're not just tracking a wolf." He breathed out, and leaned his head to gently touch hers. "Be my scout, fair lady. Let's find this, and end it."

With a nod, Dart launched.

* * *

"I can't figure out what it's looking for," Ascheriit muttered, studying scattered feathers where the monster wolf had torn apart an unlucky dove. The stench was still bad, but as long as he didn't shove his nose right into it, his stomach was reluctantly behaving. "It's gotten food and water. There aren't any other wolves around here for it to pack up with; we'd have heard them by now. But it keeps passing up chances to den. Why?"

Keeping a wary eye on their backtrail, Dart shrugged.

"Well, if it's not acting like a wolf, it's acting like Wischtech," the swordsman concluded. "Only there aren't any humans to slaughter around here..."

In midair, Dart twitched.

"So there are," Ascheriit breathed, feeling his heart beat faster. "Dart, please. If it's not looking for food and drink, it's looking for _targets_."

Even hovering, her back was one stiff line.

"If you don't care about humans, then why did you save me?"

Fay wings stuttered. She whirled on him, face a mask of grief and rage. And then bewilderment, as she looked to the darkening sky above.

_Looking at the moons?_ Ascheriit wondered.

Frowning, she flew up to the side of his face. Brushed the tip of his ear with her fingertips, like a tickle of whiskers.

_That itches!_

Like the mother of all mosquito bites, right on the edge of both ears. Or like a dusting of down, trying to scratch its way through his skin.

_No. I'm human! _

It took long minutes of focus, but at last the itching faded. He glared at Dart. "Don't do that."

She was already flying off, as if there weren't a care in the world.

"Good way to get killed," Ascheriit breathed, angry and unsettled. _Dart doesn't think I'm human_.

Well. He'd just have to prove her wrong.

"_Baaaa." _

_Was that a sheep?_

* * *

Definitely sheep, as scrawny and scraggly as any mining-village flock he'd seen growing up around Keinsrach, fleeces still growing out from the spring shearing and probably thinner than their owners would like. A black-faced, spotted band, kept as much for the spring cheeses as the fleece that would knit into sweaters that looked like they'd been patched before they'd ever been worn. A teenage boy with a staff and one of those parti-colored sweaters was drowsing on an errant boulder, evidently not ready to keep his flock pastured all night, no matter what his elders might have laid on him.

Especially given what was stalking him.

_The wolf came toward the flock_, Ascheriit thought coldly, circling downwind of a ram with a half-bitten ear. _It's had plenty of chances to pick off a straggler. It didn't take them. Which means it's after something else_.

The boy's head dropped in a snore.

A patch of inky night, the wolf erupted from the brush.

"Haaah!"

He might not have the best control over his body yet, but it didn't take much to throw rocks.

Snarling, something tentacle-like writhing near its fangs, the beast turned from the boy and leapt for him.

A flutter of wings, and snarls turned to yelps, the wolf shaking its head to try to dislodge feathered needles from its eyes.

_Good._ Ascheriit took a breath as the moons swept from behind a cloud, bright and singing. _I didn't want to have to rely on sharp sticks_-

With a pop and _crack_ of bursting flesh, three more glowing eyes opened.

..._I hate Wischtech_.

He had just enough time to brace his improvised spear against a thick stump. Then it was hot breath and slashing teeth and panicking sheep scattering everywhere in a racket that should have woken the dead and apparently was _just_ enough to rouse their nodding shepherd, judging by the angry swears going after the largest scatter of wool.

_About time_. The swordsman kept bracing tough wood, keenly aware of how it was starting to bend under the pressure of the wolf's magic-fueled ferocity. _Maybe he'll stand a chance_.

Grimly he yanked up his second, much shorter stick. _I really didn't want to get this close. If I just had a sword- There!_

He sank the sharpened branch in the hollow under gaping jaws. Not close enough to the carotids, not yet, but the wolf couldn't exactly ignore it.

It didn't. Tentacles writhed, whipping around wood and slowly forcing it back out.

_That is just not fair_.

Tentacles slipped with a yelp, as more darts slammed into glowing eyes.

_Opening!_

Ascheriit lunged for it, stone knife slicing in where his stick had opened fur and hide. Wischtech could do a lot, but vitals were vitals and _anything_ that lost enough blood had to go down...

Eventually.

With a lot of howling and gnashing of teeth.

But the moons were up, and getting torn at didn't hurt as much as it should, and if he could just keep under the jaw, away from the teeth, and _hang on_...

Shuddering and stinking, hot fur collapsed.

_Is it dead?_

Heart still drumming in his ears, Ascheriit squirmed out from under the weight of muscle and bone. It looked dead. It _smelled_ dead. But he'd feel a lot better if he could dismember the damned thing.

Dart fluttered out of the sky, hair as windblown and disheveled as he felt. Landed on top of his head for a moment, breathing fast; then took off again to swoop suspiciously over the remains.

Ascheriit watched her tug at a dart, wrinkle her nose, and evidently decide they were a lost cause. "I don't suppose you have a way of setting it on fire?"

Airborne again, the fairy turned a curious look on him. Frowned, and then covered her pointed ears with her hands, nodding at him.

_Cover my ears? Why_-

The scream pierced through flesh and bone like a hot needle. Ascheriit dropped to one knee, reeling.

Dust cleared, and the wolf was in scattered pieces.

Ascheriit worked his jaw, and coughed. "...You couldn't have done that before?"

Green eyes went wide, as if he'd menaced innocent children. She shook her head, horrified. Gestured at the grass, the trees; the wide scar of seared earth where the body had lain.

"Ah. Too deadly, except as a last resort?" Ascheriit nodded, achingly aware of how bloody and sore and very, very tired he was. "Fair enough. And I wouldn't have wanted to be in your line of fire." He dusted himself off, creaking like an old grandfather as he got to his feet. "But if we're going to hunt something like that again, my lady, I need better weapons."

Though there was one more thing he had to do, first.

* * *

Carefully erasing his backtrail, Ascheriit listened to a far-off commotion, and grinned. Sounded like the errant shepherd had found most of his terrified sheep. Or at least other villagers had.

_That boy's going to get a hiding_.

Though he did hope someone had looked past the boy's obvious faults, and read the message Ascheriit had scrawled in Dart's scar of seared earth.

_Stop sleeping, and get a dog_.


	3. Chapter 3

_Winter, 3972 A.D._

_Smoked meat. Dried fruit. Firewood, firewood, and more firewood_. Ascheriit leaned back against one of the better furs he'd managed to cure. _I'd rather be back in the forge any day. Less work. And warmer_.

Though he'd been lucky in his little lair, all things considered. Up until midsummer, from the look of the debris, a true forest giant had grown here, roots reaching deep into the earth over the centuries. But age or a windstorm had finally claimed it, and now the roots ripped out of the ground formed a shielding wall over the cavern they'd left behind. Even before he'd set to work finishing the shelter with evergreen boughs and anything insulating he could get his hands on, a bear who'd stumbled on it would have considered itself overwhelmingly lucky.

A week after Ascheriit had moved in, a bear _had_ stumbled on it. It hadn't been at all polite about demanding a change in ownership.

The bearskin rug might not have been his best tanning job, but it certainly helped keep the drafts at bay.

"I suppose I should be grateful for the snow," Ascheriit muttered, sharpening a fire-hardened spear as flames glittered in the eyes of a persistent friendly spider. "Makes us look like just an overgrown squirrel's nest. Though I doubt the villagers will come out this far if they can avoid it."

He still didn't know much about the village, beyond the fact that it had sheep, smelled of iron, might have lost pounds of salt to a light-fingered fairy, and simply shouldn't have been there. When the remaining Lances had first come to the Forest of Death, no one would have dared live this close to the Land of Shadows.

_But that was... gods, two years ago now_, Ascheriit realized. _Clear a land of most monsters, and people will show up. There are always the reckless, the desperate, and the stupid_.

Which one he might be, Ascheriit wasn't sure. A bit of all three, most likely.

"It's funny," he mused to the spider, nestled in its own warm sling of silk between two stacks of firewood. "Some of this I learned growing up. No boy can work in a smithy all day, even if he starts at five, and a mining town can always use a good forager." His eyes strayed to a hole in the bearskin, where his cure probably hadn't bitten deep enough. "But some, I learned from a mountain bandit."

_You called me friend, Schtemwölech. You taught me what you knew about staying alive. _

_One day, you're going to regret that_.

A knot of pine snapped in his little rock stove; Ascheriit shook his head. "Thinking too much. He'll keep. The wolves won't."

So far, the pack that had moved into the area at the first snows hadn't left any tracks smelling of Wischtech. But they were there, pushing the deer and pestering smaller prey, and if he wanted to keep what his traplines caught, he had to be quicker and smarter.

Sighing, Ascheriit pushed his feet into the rough fur moccasins he'd fashioned, stood-

Swayed, and had to lean on his spear to keep standing. _The moons are down. Damn it_.

But if he were ever going to face his betrayers, he couldn't count on the moons being up.

_I'm still human, no matter what I look like. A human fights when he has to, not when he wants to_.

He could do this. One step at a time.

_And no, I am not growing feathers to stay warm. That's what sewing is for_.

* * *

_Spring, 3973 A.D. _

Spring _itched_.

_Not going to scratch_. Not _going to scratch, damn it. The last thing I want to do is encourage it_.

There were lumps on his back, right where it was almost impossible to reach without dislocating a shoulder. Two. Small. Itchier than even chigger bites, which he hadn't thought was physically possible. Itchy to the point that sometimes he had to grip a strip of jerky between his teeth and bite down _hard_ not to scratch.

_Human_, Ascheriit thought fiercely, making himself let go of a friendly maple's trunk and walk on. _I'm human, and I_ do not _want them. Whatever they are_.

Sometimes will worked. His fingers were still odd lengths, but overall his hands looked a lot closer to human than they had months ago.

A wren called in the brush, defending a possible nest site. His ears twitched, narrowing it down to one yellow-blooming bush in particular.

_And sometimes, will doesn't work at all_.

It didn't help that Dart liked his ears. She'd tickle them. Tug on them. Land on his head and run her fingers across them, if she thought she could get away with it. And it was a friendly touch, a caring one, and sometimes... sometimes he was lonely.

Ascheriit had never thought ill of those with elven blood. But he'd never even imagined himself with pointed ears. Tracing those new upward sweeps of skin was unsettling.

_...Damn that itching! _

At least he had a good use for his restlessness, tracking where the wolf pack's territory overlapped his hunting grounds. Mostly the wolves were wary enough of whatever he smelled like not to push too far into his turf. But it was spring, and odds were the lead female had whelped a litter of cubs, meaning the whole pack would be willing to take more chances.

_Chances like stealing a spring lamb from the flock_, Ascheriit thought, leaping up a handy oak to get a good view of the sheep. At least being a little smaller made him lighter. Even with a quiver of lances over his shoulder, climbing hadn't been this carefree in years.

Settling into branches thin enough to make a squirrel think twice, Ascheriit studied the forest edge below. The sheep were spread out and browsing, biting new green off stumps left from last fall's tree harvest. Their teenage herdsman looked just a little older and more confident, splitting his attention between the flock, a gangly-limbed puppy, and a little girl in golden braids and tinier versions of the shepherd's sweater and trousers, poking through the weeds for greens humans might eat.

_Seven, maybe eight. A child. _

_What mad fool brings a child this close to the Forest of Death?_

"Stay in sight, Elsi!"

"I will!" Blonde braids tossed; a youngster's reaction to annoying older siblings everywhere. But she roamed in range of the shepherd, picking a bit of green here, a flower there.

Ascheriit sighed, and gazed west toward the village. He couldn't see it from here, but he could pick out thin trails of smoke from various chimneys, one the pure white of a clean-burning forge. If the wind blew right, he could taste coal and steel.

_They have a blacksmith_.

That was a longing fierce enough to even blot out the itching. A smith meant tools, iron, a forge. Everything he'd need for a sword.

_With a sword in my hands, I could fight_.

Over the winter he'd shaped a practice blade from hard oak, and that was dangerous enough with a skilled hand to wield it. But he wanted steel. Not just for a weapon.

_I've seen men maimed on the battlefield. Seen the look in their eyes when they met armed men again. Seen them panic at the gleam of steel, the_ snick _of a sword loosened in its sheath. _

_I need to know if I'll panic. Because if I will... _

_Then that's one more enemy I'll have to beat_.

For now, the sun was rising into full day, out of the twilight time near dawn. If the wolves hadn't come after the flock by now, they'd probably wait until sunset at least.

_I'm not here to protect them from normal wolves, anyway_. Ascheriit focused on his handholds as he climbed down. _The girl has the right idea. Spring greens are out, and I want some so bad I can taste it_-

Where was the girl?

Ascheriit cast about for her tracks, mouth suddenly dry. He was _not_ worried. Wolves didn't go after humans. Usually. Unless they'd been warped. Or it was a very _small_ human.

But there were more predators than just wolves nearby. Bears. Giant eagles. Slinking forest lions; he hadn't seen a track of one here yet, but he knew they roamed other parts of the forest. And that didn't even begin to list the _things_ in the Forest that might have been millennia-old Wischtech, and yet survived. None of those would hesitate to feast on a little girl, if things went wrong.

"Kitties!"

He didn't have to do anything. He didn't have to _say_ anything. He could just leap into the trees and dispatch any enemy from the concealment of the branches; after a few instances of furtively sneaking lost lambs through windows and leaving leaves of yarrow and _asëa aranion_ on a doorstep when the healer herself was coughing too much to find them, the villagers probably knew _something_ was out here but they'd never laid eyes on _him_-

He cleared his throat, and raised his voice for the first time since the leaves had fallen. "Elsi, don't!"

Ahead of him, he heard her draw a startled breath.

_There's no way a housecat is surviving out here_, Ascheriit knew, pushing past a thorny prickle to reach the spot of sun the girl had found. _Which means a magical deception, or_-

"Elsi, don't," Ascheriit repeated, more softly; seeing the tufted ears, the short tails of that enticing tangle of fluff. "Those are lynx kittens. Their mother will be very unhappy if humans touch them. She might even be afraid to come back to them."

The little hand snatched back as if she'd almost touched fire. "But I won't hurt them!"

"She doesn't know that." Ascheriit made sure he was still in shadow, and wished he'd spent a moment to bring up the hood of his tanned cloak. But doing that now would draw Elsi's attention to his hands, and that probably wasn't a good idea. "Come on. Your brother's going to be worried about you."

Already reluctantly walking away, Elsi drooped. "No, he's not. Corgi did this. Corgi did that. Corgi chewed up Ma's knitting; think how he's going to chew up those wolves!" She kicked a stone, sending it tumbling under a clump of teabush. "Parsifal doesn't have to try an' pick up the yarn an' make it work again! It's not _fair_."

"Boys," Ascheriit agreed, falling in behind her. Which might not be entirely fair; he probably wasn't that much older than Parsifal himself.

_I feel older. Ages older_.

But he was speaking to another human being and nothing had blown up yet. This was nice.

"Are you coming to live in our village, too?" Elsi skipped as she walked, evidently reassured that here was someone who understood how utterly unfair and annoying puppy-besotted older brothers could be. "Uncle Artur said nobody new would be coming until the roads dried out for the summer. Uncle Artur's always right! Mostly."

"I'm sure he is," Ascheriit murmured, mind racing. "Your village is a little close to the Forest of Death, isn't it?"

"Closer to the Forest, farther from the War!" For a moment a little girl's skip imitated a grown man's stomp, one tiny fist swinging out and down like a hammer. "That's what Uncle Artur says. The War was _bad_. It took Uncle Artur's foot and Ma's ear and Da, and Ma says that's why Parsifal is so sad sometimes. I don't remember Da much, I was too little. But Uncle Artur's big and strong and he thinks _real hard_ before he tells people what he thinks, and I don't know why Parsifal has to fight with him so much!"

"It's a boy thing, I think," Ascheriit observed. Not that he knew for certain, beyond what he'd observed in other families in Keinsrach. He'd never had a reason to fight with Smith Eren or Master Ludift. "If you tell him he's being stupid he probably won't listen. But if you tell him he's being _silly_..." Ascheriit grinned. "Boys have this thing about looking silly."

Elsi giggled, and skipped in a quick turn to grin up at him, just as they passed through a patch of sunlight. And froze, stumbling to a halt.

_Damn_.

Ascheriit halted, not sure what to say, what to do. If there were anything he could do that wouldn't make things worse. He knew what she was seeing. A scarred, oddly-shaped monster in leathers-

Blue eyes went even wider. "You're all _knots_."

_Uh-oh_.

* * *

"...Ow."

"Don't - urgh! - fidget!" A small fist waved in front of his face, brandishing a comb festooned with tiny knots of twiggy white hair. "Ma says it hurts worse when you fidget!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good gods!" Another yank; though for a girl her age she was trying to be gentle. Her mother must be a good teacher. "How did you get this mess?"

"My... hands were hurt," Ascheriit said hesitantly, shifting on the bit of log he'd moved so he could sit below the level of Elsi's rock. "I couldn't take care of it for a while." Which was true, if not the way she'd think. "And then - I didn't have a comb."

"Hmph!" A grownup sniff. "That's no excuse..." Small hands slowed, and stopped. "Were you hurt in the War too?"

"Yes," Ascheriit managed. _I went to fight in the war. I went to end the war. Instead_...

"Did you know Uncle Artur?"

Unsettling thought. "He fought against Wischtech?"

"No, not a lot, he says," Elsi frowned. "He's a blacksmith. The best blacksmith in the village!"

Quite probably the only blacksmith in the village. But if he'd been close enough to the front lines to be wounded, odds were he was fairly good. "I hope he's making arrowheads," Ascheriit muttered. "Could you tell your uncle something?"

Fingers were back in his hair; tugging again, but much gentler this time. "Wait just a minute..."

_Huh? _

A swift pattern of tugs on one side, then the other. "There!" Elsi said triumphantly. "All better."

Bemused, Ascheriit glanced back at the white plait laying over one of his shoulders, a match to its twin on the other side. _She braided my hair_.

On the one hand, the boy he'd been five years ago might have died of embarrassment. There were reasons he'd kept his hair just long enough to shade his eyes. Being called girly was just one of them.

On the other hand, at least it was out of his way. "Thank you."

Picking his knots out of her comb, Elsi beamed at him.

He tried to smile back. But he could hear Parsifal whistling, meaning the boy and puppy were making rounds of the sheep. Which meant if he hadn't missed his sister yet, he would soon. "Tell your uncle-"

"You come to the village and tell him!"

His blood ran cold. "I - can't."

Elsi frowned. "Why not?"

_I'm afraid of people. I'm afraid of what I might do to people_.

"I have... a very small friend," Ascheriit said carefully. "She doesn't like humans. I don't know if they hurt her or just scared her. But whenever I'm too close to the village, she gets worried."

"Oh." Elsi's shoulders fell, then perked up again. "But what if he came out to see you?"

"I'll think about it." Later. When he wasn't fighting thoroughly understandable nerves at what Parsifal might try to do if he found his little sister talking to a monster. Not to mention when he'd had more time to think about a lamed blacksmith willing to walk into the edges of the Forest of Death just to talk to a stranger. There were reasons those seven had turned back rather than complete their mission.

_Focus on now_. "Listen. This is very important. Tell your uncle I haven't found any more Wischtech wolves. But I'm worried. Could you tell him that?"

"Uh-huh." Picking a few more white strands out, Elsi stuffed them into a sweater pocket. "I wish you would come."

"I'll think about it," Ascheriit promised. "But not today."

"Okay," Elsi sighed, comb clean. With another sigh, she got to her feet, jumping down from the rock light as a lamb.

And stopped, eyes wide again. "Oh! What's your name?"

_My name_. And that was a more dangerous thought than going into the village. Anyone who'd been near the war would have heard of Blade Master Ascheriit.

_Think, think - pick something! _

He fumbled after memories of old stories, of warriors turned hermit in the wilderness until they'd healed enough to face the monsters once more. "Köinzell," Ascheriit said firmly. "Call me Köinzell."

"Köinzell," Elsi sounded it out. Flashed him a grin. "That's pretty!"

"_Elsi! I told you not to get out of sight!" _

"You'd better get going," Ascheriit advised. "Tell your uncle - I'm glad he's looking after you."

"Okay!" She lunged-

_Don't strike, little girl, no weapons!_

Arms wrapped around him as far as they could go, leather and all. He could smell human, and wool, and sunlight.

Pressing her comb into his hand, Elsi smiled and scampered off, waving. "Bye, Köinzell!"

"Goodbye," Ascheriit managed, waving the hand that didn't have polished wood in it.

"_Elsi!" _

_Time to go_, Ascheriit decided, leaping up into the trees to be just another shadow in new leaves.

_Someone really needs to teach that boy to look up_.

* * *

_Well. This isn't good_.

Breath still misting in the dawn, Ascheriit stared down at the tangle of mismatched bones and rotted fur thawing out of what had been a deep drift. He'd had to blink twice before the brown-and-ivory lumps made _any sense at all_. Which terrified him even more than Dart's tugging hands and her desperate, painful pokes at his earlobes to keep him awake and aware until he'd gotten back outside, into air that didn't smell of corrupted amber.

_Some kind of sedative? Never smelled that one before... rune-trap. Didn't see all the symbols, but - something about fae. So I told Dart to stay back, and_...

His memory seemed to stutter there, but he was pretty sure he'd tried to pass the trap. It was set for fairies. And he wasn't one.

Only the moment his hand had crossed the arc of the circle, runes had lit, and the air had filled with a stench of leathery amber.

_The trap thought I was fae_.

..._And that's not entirely wrong, is it? Not after what I've done_.

Ascheriit made himself take deep breaths of chill air, and tried to think past the pounding in his head. _Wischtech sorcery uses elvish and fairy blood. It's probably set to take down anyone with a drop of magic who_ isn't _the sorcerer_.

_And that's probably not the only trap. If I were a sorcerer draining magical creatures of their blood for nefarious rituals, I'd make damn sure I caught any angry relatives_.

Rubbing his aching temples, Ascheriit muttered some choice army curses under his breath, and gently stroked the top of Dart's head where she'd collapsed into the crook of his neck. Put the pile of bones together with what he'd found in the half-ruined building behind him, before he'd run into that awful puff of gas...

_I can't handle this alone. Not fast enough. Not safely. I need help. _

_And even if I didn't, they need to know_.

Ascheriit sighed, and braced himself for the long walk back to the flock's current grazing grounds. If he were lucky, Elsi would be there, and he could give her a message. If not...

_I can walk into the village if I have to. I don't think Dart would stop me_.

But she'd trusted him when she didn't trust humans. He didn't want to betray that trust.

_One step at a time. Let's see if Elsi is there_.

* * *

She wasn't. Parsifal and Corgi were. And an older man, mid-thirties if Ascheriit had to guess, with smudges of soot caught on sleeves and red headband, and a light travel-pack over one shoulder.

_I smell bread. And butter. And_ cheese.

Mouth watering, Ascheriit caught himself before he stirred any leaves. Or fell out of the tree. He had his own mid-meal, such as it was. He'd live.

_Besides, it could be a trap. A very, very tasty trap_.

"I want to go too!"

Ascheriit eyed Parsifal's stubborn stance, gauging it the way he'd watch students at the sword academy. Not quite inflexible enough to ignore reason. Yet.

"This may be one of the high fae, lad," the older man said bluntly. "If it is, and he takes offence, one more fighter won't make a difference. A messenger to go get help might."

_High fae? What? They didn't see Dart; and anyone who did would know she's one of the small fairies. So what- _

_Wait. Do they mean_ me?

"Uncle Artur..."

Artur rested a callused hand on the shepherd's shoulder. "It's not like I'm going to be running for help, now, is it?"

"This is a bad idea," Parsifal grumbled.

"Well, it might be," Artur allowed, lifting his hand again. "But if he wants to talk about Wischtech wolves, I want to listen."

"But the War's over!" Parsifal waved exasperated hands; Corgi chased the shadow of one, tail wagging. "That one last fall had to be just something lost from somewhere else. You and Ma were there, you know. Nobody ever makes just one monster. And we haven't seen any more!"

"No, we haven't," Artur said soberly. "Ever think there might be more than one reason for that?" He held out a hand; clasped Parsifal's wrist, one soldier to another, when the boy reluctantly returned his grip. "Now mind, your Ma and I are counting on you to do your job. I don't expect trouble. Why, for all we know, he's upped stakes and moved on, and all I'll have is a quiet noontime away from the forge and a loaf of your Ma's bread all to myself."

"Just be careful," Parsifal muttered. "Elsi said he was..." Words seemed to fail him, as the teen gestured at his face.

"The War maimed a lot of people," Artur said bluntly. "I've heard what Wischtech sorcerers did to any with magic in their blood. If a fairy survived them, I'd be more surprised if he didn't have scars." The blacksmith straightened. "Calm down, and mind the sheep. If I need you, I'll scream."

"Oh ha, _very_ funny. I'm just rolling on the ground, here..."

Chuckling under his breath, Artur headed into the woods.

A shadow in the leaves, Ascheriit followed.

Artur made his way to the log and boulder, glancing at a few stray strands of white not thieved away by birds or wind. Sat on the boulder, rubbing one knee, and unslung his pack. "Köinzell?"

Ascheriit quietly let out a breath. "I take it you're Artur."

The smith jumped, glancing up into the trees at his shadowed form. "Well, that answers that," he murmured. "I thought I'd be nooning out here for a few days before I caught hide or hair of you."

"I didn't plan to be back for a few days," Ascheriit said honestly. "You may have trouble."

"Hmm." Artur hefted the pack. "Trouble that can't wait for a bite?"

"It can wait," Ascheriit allowed. And hoped his gut wasn't rumbling _that_ loudly.

The smith nodded, and started unpacking lunch. Quite a bit of it.

Torn, Ascheriit faded back into the branches.

Artur glanced toward the shadows, violet eyes narrowed slightly. "We've seen plenty of war wounds among our own."

"Not like this," Ascheriit said darkly.

"Fair enough," the smith muttered. Took out a hand towel, and set one of the small loaves on it. And turned his back.

Silent as shadow, Ascheriit came down. Hesitated, and left some of the jerky and leathery wild apples he'd planned for his own noontime.

Loaf in hand, he leapt back up into the branches. "Thank you."

"Huh." Artur picked up the jerky, and took a good sniff. "Bear? That must have been a sight."

Ascheriit inhaled the scent of still-warm bread, and sighed.

Silence was delicious.

"Well." Artur brushed away a few crumbs, and leaned back against half-shadowed stone. "Wischtech and wolves."

"I think I found where fall's unwelcome guest came from," Ascheriit said bluntly. "Can you get your hands on some help, and rock oil?"

"Rock oil." The smith didn't sound that surprised. "Some if I bring my own stock, more if I convince the village. Something needs burning? I thought fairies could handle that as well as any of us."

"That would be part of the problem," Ascheriit admitted. "I can't get inside." He took a breath. _I don't want to send anyone into danger. But there is no choice_. "But I think a human can."

* * *

_Traps for anything with fairy blood_, Artur thought, hand gentle on River's reins as he kept a wary eye on trees dripping with vines, scraggly gray moss, cobwebs, or in one case a half-hour back, twitching tentacles. _Guess that leaves me outside with Köinzell_.

Not that he minded that, much. Jakob the Tanner and Ian Salt were good, steady men; not the strongest fighters in the village, but hard to rattle. If they had to go poking around a sorcerer's lair, Artur was fairly sure nerves would matter more than steel. Particularly given how much of the Forest they'd have to cross to get there. There were reasons no one else had laid claim to the site their village was on, despite the landscape trained eyes could read for _iron and salt right here, just dig_. Big, toothy reasons.

"Wait."

A whisper from shadows ahead. Artur halted his mule with a quiet _whoa_; listened to Jakob and Ian halt Plug and Whitesock behind him. The two horses snorted a bit, but seemed to trust their riders. River just rolled an eye back at Artur in a clear, _the next tree that jumps me is going to get kicked. Hard_.

Pieter's stubborn mount, for sure. Artur shut thoughts of the dead gently away, and focused on the living. "Do we need to find another path?" They had once before; Köinzell had done a good job scouting, but evidently he wasn't used to traveling with mounts. They'd had to circle a slope or two.

"...No," Köinzell's murmur came back. "Just give me a few minutes."

Without so much as a rustle of leaves, their guide was gone.

The three of them traded glances. Jakob shrugged, and fished in a pocket for a leaf-wrapped bit of sugar, breaking it in half and handing one to Ian so Whitesock could get some too.

River snorted, still giving his rider an evil eye.

_If you think you can bribe me into staying quiet in a huge monster den with just_ sugar, _you're out of your mind_, Artur translated silently. Grinned, and got out a bit of Robin's dried fruit leather.

River lipped it from his fingers, obviously enjoying the taste of cinnamon and sparkle of ginger in the tough treat. Pawed the ground once, but otherwise stayed silent.

"_I had to marry her,"_ Pieter's voice echoed in Artur's memory. _"She's the only one who can bribe my mule!"_

Three years, and he still missed his best friend like it was yesterday. Robin tried to put on a brave face for her littles, but he knew she still hurt too.

_Well. If we burn out a bit of Wischtech, maybe that will help_-

Far too close, something roared.

Artur winced as the ground itself seemed to shake. It wasn't, he could see stable earth under River's shoes, but that _sound_ reached out and shook his bones into jelly.

The two horses snorted and whinnied, Whitesock going so far as to threaten to rear. Ian reined her in hard, eyes searching green shadows.

Soft _booms_, like wind filling leather sails.

Silence.

_Oh no_, Artur thought wryly, heart hammering. _That's not unsettling_.

He made himself breathe slowly, borrowing River's still calm. If they lost Köinzell here they'd have to decide between pressing on to a sorcerer's nest they'd never seen, or trying to get back to the village on their own. Neither prospect appealed to Artur, even if they had trail-blazed the way back.

_At least he's armed with something better than wooden lances_.

That had surprised Artur almost more than anything else. A fairy asking for a human sword?

_If he is full fae. He'd have to be, wouldn't he? There just aren't humans out here for any of the faykin to breed with_.

On the other side of the scale, Köinzell spoke a human language. That was far from impossible, elves and elf-blooded generally did... but Köinzell had _white hair_. So far as Artur knew, elvish hair didn't turn gray until they were old and creaking. Köinzell might move a bit oddly, but he was definitely not old.

_Only the moon-fae are supposed to have hair like that_.

Not that Artur would claim to be a sage on the fae, even after he and Robin had combed through all the tomes on the Forest they could find before they'd set out on this desperate venture. Most of what people knew about the Forest boiled down to two things: it was full of monsters, and full of fae.

From what Artur had pieced together, he was willing to bet the fae had moved into the Forest _because_ of the monsters. Better to deal with monsters than Wischtech.

_That's something we have in common_.

He hoped so, at least. No way to be sure; not yet. Though the little things set right around the village when no one was watching argued that Köinzell actually _liked_ humans.

Granted, more than a few sacks of rough salt had gone missing over the past months, as well. About as much as a man might need, living rough in the wild, now that Artur thought about it. Which wasn't a point in Köinzell's favor... but if the details Artur had wormed out of Elsi were accurate, their kindly visitor was either deformed or badly maimed. He didn't _want_ to be seen.

_Does make bargaining for salt a bit tricky_. Artur pricked his ears, straining for any more sounds of monsters. _But if this goes right, we should work something out. Anyone who can find healing herbs in the middle of winter is someone I want to know better_.

"Not much farther now." Köinzell's voice came out of the shadows ahead. "This way."

"Take a year off my life, why don't you," Artur muttered. Shook out his shoulders, and nudged River forward. "You all right?"

"What?" That sounded like honest confusion, as Köinzell faded through the trees. "Oh. That. I'm fine. It wasn't even half grown yet."

Artur eyed wide clawed tracks in the leaves as they passed, and deliberately didn't look back at Ian and Jakob. He could hear their gulps from here. "It?"

"A dragonne, I think." Their odd guide didn't even seem worried. "It didn't want a fight."

Behind Artur, Jakob finally choked. "_That_ was _not wanting a fight?_"

"A dragonne's most potent magical weapon is its roar," Köinzell said matter-of-factly. "If you don't flinch from that, they're smart enough to know you're not prey. They're like a lion-dragon cross; I don't know if sorcerers created them centuries ago, or if they're natural creatures. But they act like other great beasts, more or less. It'll move somewhere safer."

"Huh." Ian, laconic and dry as the salt he mined. "How do you not flinch from a sound like that?"

Artur could all but hear the invisible grin. "Practice."

The smith hid a snicker. Whatever mess they were about to step into, he had a lot better feeling about their odds of surviving it.

Given it was Wischtech, he still wanted to scream and run.

A hooded cloak faded out of the brush, face too shadowed to see. "We're here."

Artur loosened River's reins, taking his first good look at their guide as Jakob and Ian calmed their startled mounts. _Elsi's right, bless her. He was hurt in the War. Or something worse_.

The leather cloak hid details, but Artur didn't need to see the scars to know they were there. Köinzell moved with a swordsman's grace, like Robin focused on a form, yet there was a twist and a limp to how he walked; as if he'd hurt a hip, or one shattered leg had healed shorter than the other. The way shoulders shifted under the cloak, hands barely coming into view for a gesture before they vanished again, one arm might have healed wrong, too. And though Artur hadn't _looked_, when he'd offered to share bread, he'd caught a glimpse of pale hands as Köinzell had traded meals. The length of those fingers, the shape of the nails... well, they were _wrong_.

Put that together with the disgust and shame in Köinzell's voice, when he'd all but admitted he was maimed... damn. Artur had heard that shame from survivors of magical acid attacks, or witchfire burns. Young men and women who might not have been the fairest ever to grace a mirrorglass, but now faced an existence as living nightmares.

It took will to live on after knowing that. Will, guts, and maybe a bit of pure hate for their arcane enemies. The Land of Shadows might have taken their looks and their health, but those who survived would not let it have their lives.

_He had the guts to live long enough to heal_, Artur thought. _That's a good sign_. He eyed the line of the sword under Köinzell's cloak, grateful he'd listened to Robin and borrowed her shortsword for their guide, instead of a heavier blade. _He can't be more than five feet, if that. And if he was hurt last fall - no. There's no way his muscles have healed enough to fling around steel the way he's used to. Better to have a light sword if we get into a real fight_. Artur quelled an impulse to rub at his ankle. _Fresh scars knot you up when you least expect it_.

Better still would be not getting into a fight at all. Artur sat back in his saddle, eyeing the half-ruined mansion in the midst of towering trees, and felt a chill go down his spine. No one human lived in the Forest of Death. Everyone knew that. But someone had built this, who knew how many centuries ago.

"How long has this been here?" Jakob asked darkly.

"From the trees, a century, at least." Köinzell was staring at the mansion, the set of his shoulders as stiff as most men facing a coiled viper. "What I could see of the belongings left inside looked as though no one's been here since fall." He circled east and north, halting near a dip in the earth that would have sheltered snow until just a few weeks ago. "I think this might be the rest of the pack."

"Mothers of mercy!" Dismounting, Jakob stared at the tangle of mutated bones, fur, and skulls with too many eye-sockets. His hands flew to the sword at his waist, then moved through a stiff ward-off against bad luck.

_Can't blame him_, Artur thought, touching his own warhammer before he got off River's back. _This is bad, bad business_.

"I think the bones won't do any more harm," Köinzell reflected. "I've seen Wischtech creatures die on the battlefield. Once they've stopped breathing, it's usually safe to let the scavengers pick the bones." He paused. "But I wouldn't at all mind burning them to be sure."

Artur squinted at the mockeries that had once been honest wolves, and nodded. "I brought coal as well as rock oil. We can deal with these poor bastards." You could never be sure how much Wischtech had decayed relative to ordinary flesh and bone, but- "You think they've been here since fall?"

"It's the most likely scenario." Distaste sharpened Köinzell's words. "Trap a pack. Experiment on them. And the one we dealt with would likely be the surviving success. Either it got out on its own... or the sorcerer let it go."

Jakob flinched at _got out_. "Are Wischtech monsters that smart?"

"They can be," Artur said levelly. Shook off that chill, and reluctantly turned his mind toward the worse alternative. "You think the bastard let a successful mutant go?"

"I haven't found a human body yet," Köinzell answered, just as grim. "Or one that might have been human."

A dead man could have been eaten and scattered through the forest months ago. But Köinzell likely knew that as well as any of them. If the wolf _hadn't_ escaped... "Shit."

"Artur?" Ian asked.

The smith held up three callused fingers. "Either the twisted bastard who did this is dead and scattered to the four winds, and we'll never find him," he dropped one finger, "or he's dead and there's some bit in there we can find to be sure he's dead..." He dropped a second finger.

"Or?" Jakob gulped.

"Or he's not dead." Köinzell shrugged. "And if he's not - then he may be back."

"Hmm." Ian sounded almost calm. "And how do we know you're not the sorcerer?"

The growl was immediate, and not quite human. "I've been fighting Wischtech since I was a child. Believe me, if a sorcerer had lured all of you out here for whatever purpose he had in mind, you'd already be dead." A slow breath. "Or worse."

"Not to mention, a sorcerer wouldn't have been able to keep his slimy hands off the next pack who moved in," Artur said dryly. "So. What we need is enough of a look inside to see if the sorcerer left under his own power, and then we torch the place."

The hood nodded. "Don't push it. If you don't trust something you see, turn back. I found one trap set for fae. There could well be traps set for humans."

Ah, yes; the day was just filled with comforting thoughts. "So where did you go in?" Artur asked. "If that entrance is where he put a fae trap, he wouldn't have room to write the runes to another, right?" At least that was what he'd heard about everything underground in Rielde-Velem, before the Emperor's chosen heroes had dealt with the fortress once and for all. Traps scribed over other traps, every time the Empire or the Land of Shadows had recaptured the place, forming a mystical net of danger even the legendary Blade Master Ascheriit had barely escaped.

Not that Artur had ever been down there to see for himself. Oh no; sorcerous fortresses were no place for an honest blacksmith. No, he, and Robin and Pieter, and their children, had been safely behind the front lines three years ago, supporting those whose duty it was to hold the line between Mollan and the Wischtech invasions. Or so they'd thought.

_The past is past. Let it stay there_.

Köinzell seemed to gather himself. "This way."

_This way_ led to a window not far from the hollow, where wooden shutters had broken or rotted away. Artur walked up to the opening, peering inside to see the circle inscribed in a doorway leading to the main mansion. "Huh. So he lets fae get in before they get attacked."

"Why not?" Köinzell said darkly. "How better to get new test subjects?"

Ouch. But the distance between the window and the trap was interesting. "You got out."

"A friend helped me."

_He has a little friend who's scared of humans_, Elsi had said. Huh. That was something Artur wanted to ask more about. Later.

Jakob and Ian traded glances, the joined Artur by the window. "Bit of a squeeze," Ian said dryly.

So it was. Whoever had built this mansion had stuck to the defensive habit of making first-floor windows a bit smaller than a man could easily get through.

_But Köinzell did, easily_, Artur considered, looking at the weathered edges of the shutters. All the splintering was old, no trace of any hasty scramble in or out. Just marks of small footprints on the floor. _The cloak fools you. He's even slighter than he looks_. "I'd say look for anything that's locked. If everything looks shut up neat and tidy, we may have trouble bent on coming back."

"But if he didn't leave of his own will," Köinzell said thoughtfully, "if he made a mistake, a fatal mistake... look for smudged chalk lines, or open containers that might have held blood or potions before they dried." He paused. "And if you see anything that looks like metal, but has a sheen like rock oil in the light - get out of there, no matter what else you see. Don't touch it, don't move it, and by all the gods do _not_ cut yourselves with it. Wischtech curse-nodes can spread in seconds. It's an ugly way to die."

Artur gave the hooded fae a sharp glance. Ugly, true enough. Nothing was uglier than your own comrades having to kill you before you killed them-

_Oh_.

Köinzell moved like a swordsman. A maimed one. Artur had worked hard to gain back the strength and guile to use a warhammer where it'd do the most good, but even years after he'd lost a foot, he wasn't as agile as he'd been and he _knew_ it. Yet if something went that badly wrong, it'd be up to them to kill the poor cursed bastard before he could get to the village. Given Artur had seen a cursed monster tear through a whole battalion to rip deep into the rear and wipe out innocents, soldiers he knew, Pieter...

_If it's only the two of us to take a cursed man down, it'll have to be an ambush. Damn Wischtech. Damn them all_. "Ugly," Artur rasped, throat tight. "So don't touch anything that looks off. Better if we burn it all and take our chances."

Jakob nodded, wiping his hands on his trousers. Ian gave Artur a second look, then turned back toward the window. "Come on, Jakob. Let's take a good look before you boost me in."

As the pair worked out how they were getting through, Artur joined their silent guide. "If they die in there, I won't forgive you."

"I hope nobody dies." The head tilted. "But if you survive and I don't, go a mile east of that grazing and call out for Dart. She may not like humans but she _hates_ Wischtech. I think she'd help, if she could." A huff of a laugh. "Just don't step on her spider."

"Dart." Artur burned the name into his memory. "You're not planning on dying, are you?"

"No." There was anger in that voice, like lava moving under just-cooled stone. "I have something _very important_ to do."

Hairs prickled on the back of Artur's neck. He'd heard that tone before. When Robin had lost Pieter, and half the fighting men and women she'd known, all in one horrible night. If she hadn't had her littles to live for, he didn't like to think what might have happened. "When we get out of this, what do you think you'd like to trade for salt? I know Robin could use certain herbs. She's a fair healer, but she's also one of those who hammer sword-lessons into those of us who can use them, and there's only so many places she can be at once. And we'd all rather she not wander too deep into the Forest. Not with Elsi so young."

The cloaked figure started. "Your healer is Elsi's mother?"

_That's it, lad. Let go of rage back then. Focus on the now_. "You're borrowing one of her swords."

"...I'll try to do it honor." The hood turned toward the window, listening intently.

Artur pricked his own ears, listening to not-stealthy footsteps. Shoving sounds, like furniture moved across the floor. Rustles that might be someone stirring papers. And just at the edge of hearing, a click like wood on something... not wood.

"I think we've found a trapdoor," Jakob called back to them. "Just have to move this chest-"

Faint as mist, something hissed.

"Get out!" Köinzell was shouting, voice pitched to carry over a battlefield. "Get out now!"

"_Holy-!_"

Wood shattered. Ian screamed.

In a flicker of dropped leather, Köinzell dove in through the window.

* * *

_Whatever it is, it's big. Inside it'll have less room to fight_-

A steam-kettle scream and a blast of heat struck Ascheriit as he dove to the right side of the room, sword slicing down through the pincer that had stabbed deep into Ian's thigh.

Faceted black eyes whirled, mandibles dripping as the centipede-like monstrosity flexed white coils to slash more claws at him.

_Colored like something arctic_, Ascheriit thought, in the flickers of time between ducking and slashing. _But if it was quiet until they opened the trapdoor - hibernating?_

Behind him Jakob was choking and swearing, trying to drag his friend back to the window through the steam-blasts wafted by the beast's vestigial wings.

_Arctic color and internal heat. This is going to be a nasty one. Wonder if it's got a spine-? _

Leap and twist and _land_, just for a moment, putting his weight into the swing as he sliced down between plates of chitin-

_Yeeooow! _

He leapt off again like a scalded cat. His moccasins were _smoking_, and there was a suspicious hot glow to the steel that had actually pierced into the beast's back. A match to the heat-shimmer coming off those white-and-gray plates, as the monster coiled more to strike at an annoying bouncy flea of a swordsman.

Behind him, Ascheriit heard a body fall out the window.

_Good, at least someone's out - oh, hell_.

* * *

Flat on the ground with his ears ringing, Artur shook his head. He'd grabbed Ian and yanked, Jakob had been scrambling out-

Jakob was on top of him, groaning. Ian was white-faced by them both, half on top of Köinzell's discarded cloak, tying off a bit of cloth to staunch the worst bleeding from his thigh. Pieces of wall were everywhere. Some of them on fire.

And _something_ was uncoiling out of the hole, long and multi-legged and hissing like the mother of all cockroaches.

Artur pushed Jakob off to one side, grabbing his warhammer as he tried to get his feet under him. _Where's Köinzell?_

Ah. That flying bit of steel and white hair, currently ducking under a wave of claws to slice at a furred underbelly. Lurching, sometimes stumbling, but never standing still.

_Damn_, Artur thought reverently, as steel licked out in a perfect slash. _I have to bring him home to meet Robin_.

* * *

_Too slow!_

Cursing his clumsy body, Ascheriit rolled with the strike of claws; hoping he was right, and they were less likely to be poisoned than the fangs.

Mandibles snapped shut like a bear trap, snagging the end of a white braid. Ascheriit gritted his teeth and yanked his head sideways, hoping hair would break before his neck did. Strands twanged as they snapped, like an overstressed bowstring.

The swordsman stumbled free, already parrying another ripple of clawed legs. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Artur surge forward, warhammer already heading for an opening-

_No!_

* * *

"Artur! Don't hit the back!"

Köinzell's yell made no sense. Artur tried to divert the blow anyway, angling the massive weapon so it struck to the side of white plates, where legs joined the curved, inviting spine-

The heat would have melted his knuckle-hairs, if working the forge had left him any.

_Hot as iron! How? _

But he'd managed to smash a few leg-joints, and that slowed the beast as it whirled to bite him. Just, not slow enough...

Bright steel slashed out and clipped off an antenna.

The monster gave another tea-kettle scream, and whipped back toward Köinzell. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Artur smashed at more legs.

_We can do this. We can take it down_.

Except his battle-partner was already maimed and weary; he could see a thin chest heaving for breath...

* * *

_I need help_, Ascheriit admitted, breathing hard as he forced himself to jump once more. He knew the moves he wanted; the forms he _needed_. Six months ago this fight would have already been over. But he didn't have the strength or the agility. Even his thirteen-year-old self would outmatch him now.

_I won't die here! I brought these people here. I have to save them! I can't let this beat me no matter what it takes_-

Like water in the desert, he felt the moons rise.

..._Yes_.

* * *

_Is he glowing?_

Artur bashed and lurched back, far too busy to stare. Damn, but he wanted to. Sages' tomes said the high fae were tied to moonlight, but they'd never said anything about-

_Ssshhh-thunk_.

Still panting, Köinzell was suddenly past him, blade dripping black ichor. Artur blinked, and opened his mouth to yell; this was no time to take a breather. The damn fire-bug-thing would be chomping on them any moment-

With a rattle like wasp wings, the monster collapsed.

Artur blinked again, mouth caught open like a landed bass. Looked past twitching legs to where Köinzell had blurred from.

Steaming white and black, the monster's head sprawled severed on the ground. One set of mandibles gave a last, stuttering twitch.

Köinzell was still glowing. Just a little.

Artur lowered his hammer, feeling the battle-rush start to ebb. _Oh, we're going to hurt tomorrow_. "Ian?"

"He'll live," Jakob reported, white-faced; sword still drawn as he guarded his friend.

"Might not be too happy for a while, but I will," Ian agreed, eyes tight with pain as he kept pressure on the wound. "Healer Robin had better look this over when we get back. Don't fancy a Wischtech wound going sour."

"Last thing any of us need," Artur agreed, limping over the Jakob. Gestured at Köinzell's cloak.

The tanner swallowed, and gingerly handed him ragged leather. "Artur, he's..."

"The same man who guided us here. And killed that thing before it could pick its teeth with us," Artur said pointedly, shaking out the cloak. "If he's fae, so what? I've met worse humans."

Jakob still looked less than happy. "Just," he dropped his voice, "be careful."

Artur raised a brow, and tapped one of the pointed ears he kept hidden in his hair. "Jakob. If I can hear you, he likely can, too."

The tanner winced.

"It's all right." Köinzell was still getting his breath back. Still facing away, obviously not eager to give them more of a look at his form than they'd already had. "I'm still a stranger. It's wise not to trust too easily."

"Well." Artur whistled for River to gather up the horses, and limped toward the swordsman. _Sword-fae? Ah, who knows_. "Only one way to not be a stranger." He whirled the cloak over uneven shoulders, letting Köinzell settle it before he tramped around to face the man. "You could come back with us."

Red eyes blinked wide before Köinzell ducked his head, the scar over his left eye still pink from the battle. "I can't-"

Artur held up a hand. "Then come as far as the pasture, so Robin can look you over after she's done tending the rest of us. You don't want the village thinking you took a poisoned wound, do you?"

"...No."

But he'd be damned if he'd come any closer to other humans to be gawked at, Artur translated that shift of shoulders. The smith growled a little under his breath; people in his village knew what it was to deal with survivors of the War...

_Only Köinzell wasn't in the War with us. And people are people. They'll whisper. Or worse_.

Hiding in the Forest wouldn't help that. But one step at a time.

Artur stepped back, and ran a hand through his hair, wincing as strands rubbed across scalded knuckles. "Well, there's one good thing that monster did for us." He pointed back toward the mansion, as the shattered wall finally collapsed in flames. "Looks like we didn't need that oil after all!"

Under the hood, Köinzell laughed.

* * *

A/N: _asëa aranion_ \- aka Athelas, thank you Tolkien. We don't know much about herbcraft in the Ubel Blatt world, but with dark magic around there's probably something like kingsfoil, too.

A possible origin for Köinzell's name - I don't know German, so I'm swinging in the dark. But "Zell" appears to refer to a monk's cell, so it'd be plausible the name was of a fairytale hermit in that world.


	4. Chapter 4

_Summer 3982 A.D._

* * *

Ascheriit kept his hood up as he walked into Right Here, even though there wasn't a grouchy miner or farming granny in sight that he hadn't spoken with, or at least nodded to, over the years. Every once in a while a trader from the southwest managed to make it into the human village without someone getting over to warn Dart's colony first, and better safe than dodging stabs from startled outsiders.

Though if he were honest, he'd admit the real reason he kept his hood was he'd never gotten used to that first flash of _shock_ on other faces. All these years later, it still ached.

Pack over his shoulders, Ascheriit strode silently through hard dirt streets, nodding politely at Jakob inspecting fresh hides and dodging the odd flock of chickens wandering near Parsifal's dye-house. Robin's son had never been more than an average shepherd, but he'd grown into an excellent weaver and dyer. Both of which paid for the young man's _other_ hobby.

Pausing at the fenced edge of the path, Ascheriit watched Parsifal glide through sword-forms under the noon sun. The young man had worked up a sweat, and Ascheriit could smell the steel of the blade from here, but he wasn't nearly as rank as he'd have been if he'd stuck it out in the dye-house. That wooden shed was locked up and steaming in the sun, indigo fermenting into the dye that would turn patchy white-and-brown sheep's wool to sky-blue laced with silvery black.

...Then again, almost _nothing_ was as rank as working indigo. Including no few Wischtech monsters. "Curl your fingers more," Ascheriit observed. "Keep that grip solid."

"Köinzell!" Parsifal jumped, but came down in a decent guard; not bad at all for Right Here's part-time deputy and wrangler of drunken miners. "I thought you'd get in yesterday."

"Why would I have done that? Did Vaan somehow hijack an airship and get his cuttlebones here weeks early?" Ascheriit took his pack off and let it rest against the fence, taking out the wrapped spider-silk bundle of fay-worked beads and mordants that were Parsifal's share of the latest trade with Dart's relatives. "I did say Dart needed me for some scouting. We found- well, I'll give you the gory details later. Let's just say whatever ancient sorcerer thought land-going hagfish were a good idea ought to have been drowned in a bucket of slime..." He trailed off, registering Parsifal's raised brow that mingled worry and mild amusement. "What?"

"You and cuttlebone. You're almost as bad as Dart." The dyer took his bundle, shaking his head. "Ma and Uncle Artur have someone they want you to meet."

"Someone to meet?" Ascheriit said blankly. He was _not_ as bad as Dart, not by a long shot. Besides, Robin said this far inland, sea-stuffs like cuttlebone and dried seaweed were good for all of them. "A trader? Someone coming in by dragon-back? A wandering bookseller? Some of those folk are truly foolhardy, they'll dive into a raging river after-"

Parsifal had clapped a hand to his face. "Now I know who told Elsi babies were found on the doorsteps in baskets."

"They are," Ascheriit said dryly. "Just because your Ma has that story about cabbage leaves..." Wait. Wait just a minute. "You mean she - they - isn't it too early?" Oh no. Oh gods, something was wrong, he just knew it-

"Then again, maybe Elsi was right," Parsifal said, half to himself. "You wouldn't have been much help outside of boiling water." Bending down - the boy had grown so _tall_ \- he clapped Ascheriit on the shoulder. "Go on. I know they want to see you."

* * *

One last blow to the curve of iron, and Artur nodded, satisfied. Quenched it, and hung the finished horseshoe on the side of the trough with the others. "You see that, Corcoran?"

"Yes, sir!" his new apprentice said stoutly, easing off on the bellows. "The holes have to be smaller than in one of River's shoes."

"Than any mule's shoe, like as not," Artur nodded, hammer over his shoulder. "You can shoe a mule with horseshoes, but never try it the other way. Mule hooves are just harder than a horse's. Usually. Check for yourself if you have to shoe one you don't know. There's always the chance some damn fool bred his donkey to a horse with no more hoof than a fingernail to get _something_ out of her."

"Either that," Köinzell's voice drifted from the smithy door, "or they take a mule's toughness for granted and don't even check their feet after a day's work. A mule may be smart enough to kick if you try to overload him, but that means it takes a stubborn person to keep checking their hooves. And let's not even get into trying to shoe riding birds."

Corcoran yelped, stumbling back almost into the neat pile of iron rods before he stood his ground. "Master Artur, what-?"

"Ah, Köinzell," Artur said casually, glancing at the cloaked part-fay as if he were no more startling than Granny Annka down the lane. _Here's the acid test, boy. I hope you pass_. "This is Corcoran, Jakob Tanner's cousin by way of his elder great-uncle Gunter, gods' peace rest easy on him." Which was a polite way of saying _war orphan, dumped through a dozen relatives already, now tossed up like flotsam here_.

Which was pretty much how Right Here had gotten most of its few new souls, over the years. Even now, no one came to the Forest of Death who had better options. _Any_ better options.

"Corcoran, this is Köinzell." Artur turned to watch the boy's face work, awed and scared and gruesomely curious. "I'm sure you've heard plenty of stories about our scout already. The one about the chickens is _completely_ false."

"Well, mostly," Köinzell said dryly. "If Granny Annka asks you to get that silver-laced banty rooster of hers out of a hemlock tree, say no."

Artur choked back a snicker. That was one reason Köinzell had all but joined the family whenever he was in town. The man could laugh at himself, even if the end of the story had him dripping bits of egg, feathers, and hemlock needles. "The story about the fire-worm in the abandoned cellar, though - that's true. I was there."

"He saved my life," Köinzell nodded. "Remember that if you ever need to tackle your own fire-worm. With any large monster, your chances are a lot better if you can hit it from two directions at once."

Wide-eyed, Corcoran nodded. Artur kept his face neutral and smith-grim, wondering what the boy was thinking as the forge-light cast some of Köinzell's face into view. Wouldn't do any good to tell the newcomer that while the part-fay might look twisted and just a bit off, nine years ago he'd looked _worse_.

_Don't know how that's happened, but it's true_, Artur reflected. _The longer he's been coming into the village, the more human he looks_.

Though it seemed to come in fits and starts, especially if whatever monster Köinzell had faced off with pressed him hard enough to pull on the moons' power. Bits of him always seemed to go a little more awry after that.

_It's as if he hates his own magic_.

Well. That was a bit to chew over another time, when he wasn't trying to get a young apprentice to look past scars to the person. "Köinzell comes in and makes nails when we need a hand," Artur said casually. As if it weren't at all strange that someone so fay as Köinzell would know his way around a human forge. "We end up needing a lot more than most villages." He winked at Corcoran, and plucked a few caltrops off the shelf to drop into startled hands. "Partly because they don't all get used as nails. Nothing like a few of those in the right place to make a behemoth think twice!"

Though throwing caltrops where you might have to ride was always risky. They were fortunate to have made an alliance with Dart's colony in more ways than one. Fairies could smell iron. Meaning no stray caltrop could hide under leaves and ambush an unsuspecting horse later.

Gulping, Corcoran gave Köinzell a respectful nod. "I'll... look forward to working with you, Master Köinzell."

"Just Köinzell," their monster-hunter replied. "I haven't the fine skill yet needed for a true smith." A pale finger lifted; _remember this_. "A smith has to be agile as well as strong. There's nothing as discouraging as realizing you've ruined a set of hinges by bringing the hammer down just slightly wrong."

"Y-yes, sir."

_Startled and wary, but not screaming_, Artur judged. _Good enough for now_. "Get a cool drink, then sort the iron rods from the steel," he directed the boy. "I'll be at the house. Mind you get-"

"Some salt with the water, yessir," Corcoran sighed, heading off to do just that.

Köinzell traded a glance with him as Artur banked the embers, then ghosted out the door while the smith made one last check of the forge for stray sparks. "Last I saw that child, he was under Jakob's roof. Tanning didn't work out?"

Heh. So Köinzell had known the boy had been here a week, and just never let the lad see him. Why was Artur not surprised? "He's at the break-everything stage," the smith said wryly. "Don't suppose you recall what that was like."

"Someone gave me a wooden sword and started me hacking on targets," Köinzell replied, just as wry. "I'm going to guess skins didn't fare as well."

"That they didn't," Artur nodded, tucking away that odd fact with all the other scraps he'd gleaned over the years. Together they had to make a pattern, even if he had no idea what that pattern could be. Köinzell looked fae. Dart treated him as one of her own, if a bit bigger and sadly flightless. Yet every fragment of past the swordsman had let slip fit with someone who'd been raised human.

_Or elven_, Artur admitted to himself. _He might have been an elf before he was maimed_. "Jakob tried, but Corcoran broke the last straw the day before yesterday, when... well, you recall that satinsnake pelt you brought in?"

"Vividly." Köinzell's hand waved toward his neck; he cleared his throat, as if checking that he could breathe.

Ah, yes, ouch. That one had been a bit close, from what the swordsman had admitted. Mainly because the bloody idiot had dashed right in to pit his own unnatural strength against a magical constrictor, while fairies had swarmed the satin-strangling fur to pull their tiny children loose from deadly hairs.

Then again, after holding his own little one yesterday, Artur couldn't blame Köinzell one bit. "Let's just say, Jakob now has three _pieces_ of a fur."

"How did- Jakob never would have let a new apprentice work on a rare... never mind, I don't think I want to know."

"Likely wise," Artur chuckled, heading up to Robin's porch. His porch now as more than mere uncle; even after the past three years married to Robin, that still gave him a glow of joy. "Any road, I'm going to wear him out hammering for a few weeks. Then we'll see if he can start working the awkward out. In the meantime he's out of trouble and I get some boring work done." He waved to the three ladies currently seated on his porch, Elsi's hair bound up in a crown of gold braids as the apprentice healer used a leather trumpet to listen to a fidgeting girl breathe. "Afternoon, Elsi, Miss Cord. Gwen has the wheeze again?"

"Yes," Miss Cord grumbled, keeping a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Again."

"I don't think it's anything catching," Elsi said cheerfully, taking the trumpet off Gwen's back. "Gwen, if the hay makes you cough, then _stay out of it_."

The little brunette looked downright mutinous. "But Simon said-"

"Simon's not the one who's kept up nights making sure you still breathe!" her mother scolded her. "If this happens again, I'm tanning you _and_ Simon, I don't care who started it! And Miss Harper agrees with me, so you can just tell Simon and his _friends_ to chew on that and choke on it!" She huffed, handing over a few copper bits and a basket of fresh greens. "Thank you, Elsi. I'll see your mother and - what did you say the name was, again...?"

_Prying old gossip_, Artur thought sourly, watching Gwen jump and flinch behind her mother as she realized Köinzell was there. The smith probably had at least a decade on Cord himself, but a gossip was a gossip no matter how young. If it weren't for the fact that she spun some of the finest thread in the village, she'd hear quite a bit more tongues wagging about her. "You'll hear it soon enough, when Robin's a bit more rested," Artur said mildly. "Good day, Miss. Little miss." He stumped past her to the door, Köinzell following in his wake like a leather shadow.

"Oh! Oh." Miss Cord bustled past Elsi, as if she meant to get between Köinzell and the door, but didn't quite dare. "Are you sure that's... proper, such a frail little thing and..." One hand grasped in the air for the most decorous words to imply _leather-clad fae mutt straight out of the Forest_.

Manfully, Artur only took a deep breath. Stepped forward, callused hands seizing Miss Cord by the waist, and bodily picked her up and out of the way. "Good day, Miss Cord."

Köinzell slipped inside, and closed the door after Artur stepped through. "Does she really think that attitude will get her anywhere?"

_He's not joking_, Artur knew, seeing the tightness in his friend's shoulders. "Köinzell, one day our prim and proper Miss Cord is going to figure out that half this village has some drop of elf blood. You'll hear the shriek all the way out at Dart's, and I'll invite you to the funeral after her poor heart can't take the shock."

"Are you teasing Miss Cord again?" Robin's voice was soft as she rocked by the fire, a warm bundle against her bosom.

"Ah, love, she makes it too easy." Artur crouched down to look into a tiny yawn. "Has she opened her eyes yet?"

"No. But early babes often don't for a while." A few blonde wisps escaped her sensible braid as Robin grinned at them both. "So, did Artur ask you yet?"

"Ask me what?" Köinzell said warily, hanging his cloak by the door.

"There's a custom in the clans I grew up in," Artur said matter-of-factly. "The magic in our veins can help or harm us. So... we have a few old tricks to make us safer. The little one's got her true name, known to me and her Ma. But she needs a use-name for everyone else. Something to keep dark spirits and nosy neighbors at bay."

"And according to Artur, if there are no grandparents to suggest a good one, you ask a friend," Robin finished, tilting her head so her good ear was more toward them. "I thought Artur was going to ask you last week-"

"...Gurye."

Artur's brows shot up. "Haven't heard that one," he admitted. "Sounds western."

"Believe me, that name ought to scare off anything evil with sense." Köinzell's smile was shy and distant. "She's... she was a swordswoman, too."

_Interesting_. "Gurye," Artur sounded it out. "What do you think, Robin?"

"I think it sounds brave." She traced the line of a small cheek up to still-crimped ears. "Gurye. So when will these uncurl?"

"Oh, that'll be a few months yet," Artur reassured her. "Right, Köinzell?"

"I... honestly don't know." Köinzell's face was oddly pink.

"No?" Artur said skeptically. "I know Elsi still giggles about 'babies come in baskets', but-"

"I _did_."

Artur tried not to let his jaw drop. _Oh_.

Glanced at his wife, and saw some of the same quiet determination in her eyes. _Well. Now we know part of why the man's so shy of people_, Artur thought, giving her a subtle nod. _Time to work on that_.

* * *

_Safe_. Ascheriit let out a sigh as he hid out on the back porch, watching the fading twilight. He'd almost thought he would have to escape to the roof. The noise inside, even if it was a happy, welcoming noise...

_Only it's not really noise, is it? _

Ascheriit winced, as moons near full peeked through the clouds again. He couldn't deny the sense of peace and well-being moonlight brought; like a crackling fire in winter, or cool lemonade in summer. But with that peace, lately, had started coming other things.

_If this is what Dart feels all the time, no wonder fairies keep their distance from humans_.

Happiness, with the sense of a sigh at work to be done tomorrow; probably Elsi. Blade-sharp focus on family, with a fumbling joy of new kin; Parsifal. _Sleepy-warm-safe_, definitely Gurye. And that odd harmony of joy and contentment and no little bit of lust-

Groaning, Ascheriit buried his face in his hands. He was glad his friends were happy in their marriage. He truly was. But there were some things _no_ man needed to know.

_I just wish I could stop being_ surprised.

At least he'd stopped feeling as if he were going to collapse once the moons went down. And he wasn't trying to grow feathers anymore.

_I'm glad Artur doesn't know about those_. Ascheriit wrapped his arms around his knees, trying to smile. _I don't think the chicken story would be nearly as funny if people knew what really set the rooster off_.

Though if he were going to tell anyone, it would be Artur. The smith was the first villager he'd known who had elvish blood; and while Artur might not make it obvious, with his hair and his headband, he hadn't hesitated to admit why he hadn't risked venturing into the sorcerer's mansion.

_Damn it. That place still_ bothers _me_.

Footsteps, and a sense of friendly resolve. Ascheriit sat up, determined not to look anything less than confident and relaxed. "Artur."

"Half thought I'd find you on the roof." The smith sat on the edge of the back porch, looking up at the cloudy twilight. "You look like a man thinking hard. And not about a new little niece in the family."

Ascheriit shrugged. "You mentioned that those with elvish blood need to take precautions. So... I was thinking about sorcerers."

"Hmm." Artur tapped a finger against his knee. "We've not seen any sign of a sorcerer around here for nine years. Stray monsters, yes. But nothing that could be traced back to one source."

"He could be dead," Ascheriit admitted. "He could have been dead before we ever found the mansion. Before I faced the first wolf."

"But?" Artur asked.

"The wolf corpses we found," Ascheriit stated. "I counted... about eight skulls. The one after the sheep makes nine. Wolf packs don't get much larger, even if you head to the Far North."

"Hmm," the smith nodded.

"Then there's the way they were all tangled up in that gully, with mandible marks on the bones," Ascheriit went on. "As if they'd been fed on and dumped there."

"Hmm." Artur tapped his knee again, thinking. "So you think the sorcerer played with the wolves, and the ones he didn't like he fed to his fire-worm."

"Yes."

"And if he could do that," the smith reasoned on, "then he had pretty good control over his beasties, and odds are they didn't eat him."

"It's not impossible that they did," Ascheriit allowed. "But everything I saw inside looked normal and tidy before Ian and Jakob opened the cellar door. In my experience, Wischtech monsters may have a lot of power, but they usually can't pull a chest on _top_ of the door they're locked under."

"That's so," Artur said unhappily. "They did say things looked neat in there. Drawers, cabinets, books bundled up in oilcloth; like a man had packed up and meant to be away all winter."

"I didn't see much before the gas hit me, but that was what it looked like," Ascheriit nodded. "But above all that? Artur, how did those supplies _get_ there? This is the middle of the Forest. We have a hard enough time shipping iron and salt out when the roads are dry in summer, or sledding it out in winter. How did someone get a whole library of books through? Not to mention food. There's no way in hell he was living off the land there. I know; I've tried it. If you have no farm and no help, there's barely enough hours in the day to keep yourself fed and out of monster guts. And sorcerers need time to perfect their monsters. Time to study, tinker, vivisect-"

Ascheriit pressed his hands to his face, willing away flashes of bloody memory. The things the four of them had seen, journeying to strengthen the seal against the Land of Shadows... he didn't know how he'd stayed sane. There'd been weeks he wished he hadn't.

"The only reasonable way I can think of," Ascheriit said raggedly, "is by air. Dragonback or a _maschinendrache_."

"Either way, implies he had people to back him, and he doesn't need the roads," Artur nodded. A strong hand reached out, resting gently on his shoulder. "Köinzell. Are you all right?"

"Bad memories," Ascheriit admitted, straightening. That closer touch of _worry, want to help_, slipping in with the warmth of Artur's fingers wasn't helping.

"Hmm." Artur didn't lift his hand. "So. An organized sorcerer. But it's been almost ten years. If he were going to come back-"

"That's where the Empire's always failed," Ascheriit said grimly. "We didn't know what we were dealing with. Why should we? We met Wischtech monsters on the field that took out battalions in a single night before they burned themselves up - because that's what they were _designed to do_."

Artur pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. "You mean, they can design things that... don't."

"Oh yes," Ascheriit said darkly. "Some of their creatures - the valuable ones, those not just meant as living firebombs - some of them can last a very long time." He took a breath. "And so can Wischtech sorcerers."

"Gods." Artur's voice was level, but his fingers tightened. "So we're men who think in terms of the next field of grain, while they're thinking of the next stand of trees?" He muttered a few choice curses. "So even ten years later, you're worried. And I thought you were just wondering how much you should trust humans again."

"Again?" Ascheriit said warily.

"Well, you were raised by humans, weren't you?" Lifting his hand away, Artur shrugged. "That's what Robin and I thought. Why else wouldn't you know about baby ears?"

Why else, indeed? "I was raised by humans," Ascheriit admitted. It was, after all, the truth. "By a blacksmith, in fact."

"Huh. That makes sense," Artur said, half to himself. "But the way Elsi found you out there, years ago - you weren't sure who you could trust. Even now you won't stay in town a week before you duck back into the Forest. Which gives a man the notion you feel safer out there with fairies and monsters than with the kind of folk who raised you. And you're watching, _always_ watching, anyone new who shows up before you let them see you." He cleared his throat. "And given I've seen you take on everything from a fire-worm to an angry banty rooster without a flinch, whatever you're worried about is something that damn well worries _me_. So what happened? Did something go wrong in your village? Or did Wischtech... well." Hands spread, empty except for shared pain.

"It... didn't happen in my village," Ascheriit said cautiously. _What does he know? What can I tell him? _

_Gods. What do I dare tell him? I know who my enemies are. Even a rumor of what they did - from what Kfer told me, the Electors aren't shy about_ eliminating _rumors_.

He hadn't believed his noble friend. Not then. They were all citizens of the Empire. They were _heroes_. How could the Emperor who'd given them the Holy Lances allow anything like the plots Kfer had warned him of?

_Glenn is the Emperor's son_.

Which summed up his biggest problems in a nutshell. So... Artur deserved the truth. Just, not enough to be _dangerous_.

"When I was old enough to fight, I was part of a group that battled Wischtech forces," Ascheriit said carefully. "At one point, things looked very dangerous. Some of the group turned back."

"Not you," Artur said bluntly.

"No. Though if I'd known what we were up against, I might have." Ascheriit shook his head, feeling oddly numb. "The things we saw, the tormented souls who begged to die rather than kill..." He shivered. "I hate Wischtech. I will hate it to the day I die. And then I might hate it some more."

"That's two of us," Artur agreed. And waited.

"Well," Ascheriit said faintly, "we did it. We finished our mission. And then, about twenty miles _that_ way," he pointed out, into the Forest, "we ran across our cautious companions. They invited us into camp. We... were glad to see friendly faces. We ate, drank, bedded down for the night..." He rubbed his lips, remembering a bitter under-taste that had turned into deadly numbness. "And during the ghost watch, they murdered us all."

"Good gods," Artur whispered.

"I wasn't quite dead when they left," Ascheriit stated; trying to just report events, and not touch the bloody memories. "I'm not sure how I survived. I was... fading in and out a lot. But Dart decided to help me, and about two months later I tracked a spell-warped wolf near your village. And the rest you know."

The smith exhaled a long, slow breath. "And you haven't tried to go home. Or send a message saying you're alive."

"More than one of those who slew us was of noble blood," Ascheriit said neutrally. "A message might be... intercepted." His lip curled in a snarl. "And I don't want them to have any warning."

"Warning?" Artur's shoulders stiffened, wary.

"As they left me cold and dying," Ascheriit said, very quietly, "I swore I would have vengeance. For myself. For my friends. For every oath of comrades and battle-brothers they _betrayed_." For a moment, the world was nothing but red. "I will kill them, Artur. I don't know when. I don't know how. But I will find them and I will _kill them_."

_Breathe. Think of something else. Sunlight through the trees. That idiot rooster. A warm hearth, and warm hearts, that you'll never have until it's over_...

Face in his hands, Ascheriit wept.

In the wind, there was a buzz of wings.

The swordsman lifted his gaze, to meet a somber fairy in the moonlight. "Dart." He coughed, cleared his throat. "Is there trouble?"

Silent, she nodded.

Artur gave a rumbling sigh. "Lass, he's in no shape-"

"Artur." Wiping off tears, Ascheriit almost laughed. "You're a good friend. But right now... I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing than hunting trouble." He met violet eyes. "Really."

Artur growled under his breath, then shook his head. "Be careful."

"Oh, I will," the swordsman assured him, picking up his cloak. "I have something very important to do."

* * *

A/N: It's canon Ascheriit _was_ found in a basket. What else would he tell a kid?

_Maschinendrache _\- dragon airship.


	5. Chapter 5

"I don't like this."

High in a maple, Ascheriit studied the traces of a miniature murder. There, the squirrel's claws had dug into bark. There was where it'd tried to hide in a rotted-out knot of a limb. And here were thin trails of blood and fur where something had hauled it out of hiding to an unknown fate.

"No, I don't like this at all," the swordsman muttered. Dart was gripping bark near one side of the hole, too careful to come into contact with strands of speckled gray fur or dried blood. "What say you, my lady? I'm no expert on your forest, but I don't think a hawk or an owl could have reached in there. Not without getting nipped too badly to risk it."

Dart nodded, frowning at the scratches.

"A snake would have poisoned or constricted the prey before taking the corpse," Ascheriit noted. "Which would have left the victim in no shape to leave those marks. A cat or a weasel - the angle would have been wrong to fish that squirrel out easily. And a treesquid would have just squirmed in there and taken it apart." He fished out a hand-mirror from his belt pouch and used it to reflect moonlight into the hole. "Hard to say, but I think that looks like more scratches." He drew a breath. No scents he didn't expect, except- "Vinegar?"

Dart spread empty hands, shaking her head in frustration. Took to the air in a flick of wings, and landed on his shoulder to touch his cheek.

_Frustration. Confusion. Something not right. Enemy-scent-gone_.

"You did smell Wischtech." Ascheriit felt his heart pick up speed. "But it was faint? And gone now?"

Dart nodded.

"Probably a naturalized monster, then," Ascheriit muttered. That happened; creatures like the satinsnake or the treesquid, only slightly tampered with by technosorcery, might have enough natural life left in them to escape and breed true. The Forest was full of creatures like that. "But if it's a true-breeding monster, why hasn't anyone from your colony seen one before?"

From Dart's determined frown, she was wondering that herself.

"Something with a taste for squirrels is a bit too close to my friends' size for my liking," Ascheriit declared. "Let's see what else we can find."

* * *

"I really don't like this," Ascheriit muttered, concealed in the fringe of brush and young trees that had sprung up around the burned-out mansion. Dart was on tiptoes on his shoulder, twitchy as if she might take off at a blink. As well she might. They'd combed a good swath of the Forest between Right Here and the ruin, and only found a few more traces of blood and death. "Either whatever we're after can magically erase its tracks without wiping out any other signs, or it can fly."

Dart shivered.

"No, I don't like that idea either," Ascheriit said quietly. "Well. If we're checking out signs of Wischtech, we'd be fools not to search this place again."

Perched for the moment, Dart gave him a sardonic look.

"No, I'm not exactly hurrying in there," the swordsman admitted. "Do you think that wakeup concoction will actually work?"

A tiny shrug.

"Right." Ascheriit took out a small piece of Robin's horrendously hot paste-in-gum, and broke off a tiny fragment for Dart. She took it, wincing, and tucked it into her mouth.

Taking a deep breath, Ascheriit tucked the gummy lump into his cheek.

_Auuuuggghhhh hooooot! _

He panted, tears starting in his eyes. But it was a survivable heat. As long as he didn't chew it. If another rune-trap went off, he _would_ chew it, and hope the blistering heat kept him awake enough to get clear of the gas. Robin and Moss, the fairies' healer, both seemed to think it might work. Though Robin had warned him if they did have to use it in earnest, they were going to have scorched mouths.

Given a burnt mouth beat unconscious and dead, he'd live with it.

_Here we go_.

He wasn't sure what he expected to find. There was no reason whatever monsters they were chasing would have left any more signs here than they had anywhere else-

The swordsman halted in his tracks, feet away from where leaf duff and roots had been shredded upward, turning the pallor of old leaves dark with fresh soil. _Dragon-scratch!_

His nose wrinkled as the wind brought him the other unmistakable scents of a dragon's leavings. Dart gave him a glance, then took off to fly a tightening spiral over where the mansion had been. She only got through the first inward turn before she halted in midair and waved him in.

"Human tracks," Ascheriit said quietly, studying impressions of toe and heel. "Or something that walks like a man, at any rate." He straightened as Dart landed on him. "I know every pair of boots in the village. This isn't one of ours. And if anyone were coming by dragon-back for innocent purposes... it's not as if Right Here is trying to hide." No village really could, from the air; not without digging deeper into the earth than anyone living here wanted, even for salt and iron. Mines needed shoring, after all; sheep and a few meager cows grazed where trees had been felled, and farmers did their best with the sparse land after that. Though half the time that best use was just to plant back trees; building any fields toward soil good enough for steady harvests took years of concentrated work. No one moving to Right Here had expected anything else, though, and more than a few villagers had a knack for it. Randall Thresher and Miss Cord were some of the best at nursing local land into productive use. If it weren't for Miss Cord's Gormbarkan attitudes toward mixed blood, she'd be one of the village's best new additions...

Ascheriit stopped dead, and took a deep breath. Given Miss Cord loved nothing better than gossip, and whoever had come here on dragon-back had apparently also flown away, meaning he would have seen enough from the air to know where Right Here was-

"I can trap him, Dart," Ascheriit said fiercely. "I can use that gossiping mouth of Cord's and a sorcerer's hunger for fairies to lure him where we'll _know_ he'll come. I can put the fight on our terms." And if it was his borrowed sword against a sorcerer, when he had surprise - yes. That fight, he could win.

Dart flicked her wings. Gave him a narrow-eyed look.

"Yes, I'll talk to Artur first," Ascheriit grumbled. "I want to kill the bastard, not let him slip free to wreak carnage because I was too angry to think straight."

Dart nodded. Leapt into the air, and gestured in the direction of her colony.

"You warn them," Ascheriit agreed. "I'll warn Right Here."

* * *

"Damn it, it's not natural, that's what it is!"

Emerging from the Forest on one of the marked trails - no need to panic anyone yet - Ascheriit glanced first at the small pack of brown-and-white farm-dogs hanging back inside the young apple orchard, ears pricked and alert. Only then did he turn his attention to the whitewashed hive-box and the two discussing it: one frowning farmer and the wiry young beekeeper Parsifal didn't know everyone _knew_ he was sweet on. The dogs hanging back away from their person might just be because of the bees. And the mace and daggers might just be for ordinary Forest threats. Maybe. "Barron. Miss Sofia. What's not natural?"

"Gods!" Mace at his belt, the farmer fanned himself with a broad hand. "Give a man a start, why don't you..."

"Köinzell?" Bee-veil tucked up along the brim of her straw hat, Sofia looked past him toward the trail he usually didn't use, and frowned. "It's my bees. There's not enough of them."

That was alarming. If your bees died in more civilized lands, you stood a good chance of hunting down a wild swarm to restock your hive. Here on the Forest's edge? Sofia had nursed her first hive over two hundred miles to make it here, through some of the chilliest terrain in the world that wasn't actually ice, and who else was likely to be that crazy? "Are they ill? Mite-ridden?" That had happened the first year she'd let them fly; ugly little sucking bugs from some dank lair in the Forest, making meals off what bees used for blood. Sofia had almost lost her first hive then, before Dart had brought some friends into town to go on a bug-hunt. After that one of the more mystically inclined fairies had had Sofia bring out the queen, and done something under the light of the full moons. A magic that had tingled Ascheriit's hair like an oncoming storm, and tasted hot as cinnamon.

Since then, Sofia's bees had been larger, and distinctly more cranky about strangers. But the mites had never returned.

"Not mites," the beekeeper said firmly, with a tug near her wrists as if she were about to pull gloves back on to check the nearby combs. Or maybe she was just checking her daggers were tight in their sheaths. "None of the hives seem sick, though if Dart and Stinger want to check, that's fine by me. It happened just in the last few days. It's like they're flying off and just not making it back."

"It's not natural," Barron repeated. "I had my boys sniff 'round this hive to check for other kinds of robbers, and-" He shook his head, and pointed at the corner of the hive nearest the Forest. "They scented something on there. The way those ears went back, you'd swear they smelled a blue-ringed treesquid!"

Ascheriit frowned, and stepped closer for a better look, never minding the few bees that paused and perched to crawl over him. Insects hadn't bothered him for years, anymore than they did Dart. And mosquitoes actively avoided him.

Hmm. The whitewash Sofia used on her hives was worn thinner here. As if it'd been scratched.

Breathing in, Ascheriit tasted the faintest lingering hint of vinegar. "Get back to town. Now."

"What?" Barron frowned.

"Whatever they are, Dart and I have been tracking them," Ascheriit said swiftly. "They're at least big enough to pick off squirrels. And if they frighten the dogs..."

Sofia drew a swift breath. "Wischtech?"

"Might be." Ascheriit nodded, slightly relieved. If Parsifal had to fall for a girl odd enough to carry bees in her hair to keep them warm, at least she had a brain to go with the quirks. "We found dragon-sign at the mansion ruin. And bootprints."

Barron swore, blistering the air. Ascheriit winced, ears pressed tight to his head. Nobody needed to know language like that.

"No one's brought a dragon into the village," Sofia said, eyes narrowed as she glanced across the sky.

"We'd have noticed, even out here," Barron agreed darkly, shouldering his mace. "Damn sorcerers. Can't they leave honest gods-fearing folk alone?"

"No," Ascheriit said quietly; angry, and terribly sad. _Damn moons_. "No, they can't. It's a sickness."

"Wischtech?" Sofia started. "It's monsters, and curse-nodes, but-"

"I don't know what else to call it," Ascheriit admitted. "The mage-weapons seem to be safe, though I'd avoid them. I've seen Wischtech traps anyone could set off, though I wouldn't hang around those, either. Even the monsters may leave you with nothing worse than a filthy wound. But the Wischtech fools use on themselves, that makes uncanny weapons of their own flesh and bone? That doesn't just warp the body. It preys on the mind."

Touching the knives up her sleeves, Sofia gave him a long look. "You sound like you're sure."

_And you sound scared by that. Well, you should be_. "The first Wischtech-tainted person I ever crossed blades with was one of my teacher's former students," Ascheriit said gravely. If Sofia meant to be family, Parsifal deserved someone well-armed with the truth. "From all I've heard of him, he'd been a good, decent man. Until he decided there was something he wanted more than his own master's life. And then..." He shook his head. "I've met those who know magic who are as sane and trustworthy as any of us. I've trusted them with my back. But Wischtech sorcery is something else, and it needs to _die_."

* * *

_Hurry. Don't look like you're rushing. But hurry_.

Ascheriit walked swiftly toward the smithy, trusting Barron and Sofia to carry word to other parts of town. He didn't have a reason to panic. Except that he'd been up on dragon-back enough to know how very much you could see from that height, and there was no way their potential sorcerer could have missed Right Here. Given the whole forest hadn't burned down when the mansion had, the fire had been intelligent action. And if the sorcerer were looking for two-legged arsonists, Right Here was the obvious place to start.

_Hurry_. His eyes caught the flutter of familiar blue skirts, and he tried not to sigh. _Just don't stop_.

"Twice in two days? You're making this a rather common place to be."

All implications of _common_ intended. Right. "Good morning, Miss Cord," Ascheriit said courteously. Wanting to rip something's head off was no excuse for a Blade Master to be ungracious. Miss Cord wasn't the enemy. Much. "Your pardon, but I need to speak with Smith Artur immediately. There's a problem in the Forest." There. That was both true and would leave her eager ears hunting for more-

"There's plenty of problems here in the village, but you don't see me getting high and mighty," Miss Cord sniffed, bustling along to match his pace.

_Argh_.

"Why, just take that stranger who came in with Trader Vaan," she said avidly. "Sparkly combs! Ribbons! As if the girls around here didn't have quite enough encouragement for that sort of behavior."

"I'm sure you'll set an example for all of them," Ascheriit said wryly.

_Wait. What? _

"Trader Vaan?" Ascheriit said carefully. "Are you sure?"

"So he said. Met the man on the road, came early when Vaan lost a wheel, he'll still be a few days." Cord's eyes gleamed. "You mean you might call the man," _a liar_, was clear in her deliberate pause, "mistaken? I know Vaan came later last year-"

"Vaan _always_ comes later in the year." Ascheriit halted in the midst of the dusty street, scanning the village for any sign of things amiss. "Dart's people love cuttlebone, and Vaan loves how light it is when it's dried. He never makes his first summer run until at least two weeks from now, after the cuttlefish frenzy's passed through the southern ports. Has anyone seen Vaan? Who is this trader? Where is he?"

"Who knows?" the thread-maker huffed. "He's been wandering all over the village. Well, we'll put a stop to that!" She lowered her voice. "Don't take this the wrong way, young man, but there's a certain type of man who looks at... your kind... and has thoughts no gods-fearing soul should. And _he_ was looking at children, too." She shuddered in distaste.

_The children. The sorcerer is here, has_ been _here, and he's looking at elf-blooded children_.

And in an ordinary village, even with chickens scratching underfoot, there were still so many places Wischtech devices could be hidden. Dug under a water trough. Tossed into a nearby hayrack. Tucked up in the vanes of a windmill, to possibly drop enchantment and poison into pumped water or ground grain.

Ascheriit bolted for the smithy, wishing he could wrap that scent of iron around everyone like armor. _"Artur!"_

"Corcoran! Keep the bellows going!" Artur lowered his hammer, stepping away from hot iron. "Köinzell? What's wrong?"

Ascheriit skidded to a halt, loosening his sword in its sheath. "Sorcerer, posing as trader, he's _here in the village_-"

Above, wings drummed the wind.

Snarling, Ascheriit spun on his heel, hand dipping inside his cloak to pluck and throw a slim knife at the descending dragon. No rider, and there was something large and rounded as a bulging waterskin _in_ its claws-

Steel glinted, whipping in under snapping jaws. The dragon screeched, claws releasing the rippling skin.

...Right over Artur's haystack.

Leather bounced on yellow hay; bounced again. Tottered there on the rounded top, unbroken.

Ascheriit let out a breath of relief, eye on the dragon as it circled, as if trying to judge whether it was worth descending to bite them. "I don't know what's in there, but it can't be... good..."

Wobbling, one end of the uneven skin had finally dipped, and it tumbled down the side of the stack. Straight toward the gleaming tines of a stray pitchfork, abandoned there until the next time the beasts needed fodder.

Leather struck steel with a brutal _thunk_.

"Damn it, Corcoran," Artur muttered, as the skin collapsed in a rush of choking amber. "I told you to _put that away!_"

* * *

_Oh gods. My head_.

Ascheriit tried to blink, eyelids screaming pain as the rasp of eyelashes across skin struck his ears. His head felt like someone had pounded it with an acid mallet, his mouth was on fire, and someone was trying to jam something tasteless and cold over his tongue-

"Damn it, Köinzell, don't bite me!"

"Robin?" he tried to croak. The tasteless stuff was actually butter, now that he could smell it. With some kind of healing herbs pounded in. The kinds Robin used for burns.

Burnt mouth. Lingering scent of rotted amber. Dimming warmth from the forge; Artur had grabbed his skinny hide and shoved him straight into the forge's coal bin, where black dust might stand a chance of hiding someone from a hum of not-dragon wings. And if the memory of being yanked off his feet and _flung_ in here was fuzzy around the edges, he could still feel the dents where he'd taken a header right into lumps of coal, and- "The sorcerer!"

"Been and g-gone." Robin's breath hitched, her eyes bright with tears she would not cry. "He took them, Köinzell! He took my Gurye, and Artur, and Elsi _made_ him take her, and oh gods, the others..."

Ascheriit coughed and spat, leaning on Robin's arm as he got to unsteady feet. From the red, part of what he'd spit out was blood, and he didn't want to look any closer. "Who's left?"

"Of anyone with elf blood? You're it." Parsifal leaned down to help him stand, then limp out into the afternoon sun where the village survivors were gathering outside the smithy gate. "He took all of our kin. Elders, children - everyone. I don't know how. I heard... something in the air, before the rest of us passed out, but-" He cut himself off, fists clenching. "Bastard. Why did he leave us alive?"

"Because he didn't have time to kill us," Ascheriit grated out. His mouth was raw; his throat actually felt worse. "He's alone. Just him and his monsters-" He halted, swaying a little as he took in the image of an exhausted thread-spinner leaning back against the fence, neat dress soaked through and sporting what was going to be an impressive black eye. "Miss Cord?"

"That - that reprehensible, vile, utter _abomination_ of a man-!" She hissed, and pressed a wad of cotton against a split lip. "Tell me there's something we can do to stop him!"

"If we can find him," Ascheriit began.

Dragonfly wings thrummed in the wind.

He thrust up a hand; palm up and fingers curled, not the flat back as he'd usually offer. Something was ragged in that hum, and it set his heart hurting.

Dart and Moss fell out of the air, thumping into his hands as he cupped them together.

_Fury. Weeping. Tiny faces hidden in cracks and behind secret doors; empty air where others should be. A buzz in the wind and darkness. Find, and fight! _

Ascheriit blinked away tears, leaning against Parsifal as he realized he was cradling exhausted fairies in one arm. "The sorcerer's swarm hit the colony, too. They've lost people. Adults and children. The only ones who escaped are the ones who managed to get into fortified rooms before the gas took them down."

Dart was keening as he held her; a thin thread of sound that quivered through his bones and made the nearby fence judder like a stampede. Moss pressed his head against hers, pale green hair bright as willow leaves, until she quieted.

"He hit the fairies too?" Parsifal croaked.

"He did," Ascheriit said, mind racing. He could hear the fear and disbelief in the younger swordsman's voice; he had to head that off _now_, before people could panic. "That was his first mistake."

"Mistake?" Sofia, bee-veil in tatters around her face, stumbling in pale to help Cord press a damp cloth against her wounds. "How can attacking our friends be-"

"_Because now we know where to find him!" _

Gods, that roar hurt. But it'd slapped them out of their shock; Ascheriit could see people straightening, touching weapons, turning fear into shaky determination.

_Right. Keep that momentum going_. "Dart and I already searched the Forest between here and the ruin. We know where he _isn't_. And now we know his creatures hit here and Dart's home at just about the same time. Sorcerers may put in gods know how many hours delving into things none of us would touch, but when it comes to physical work, they're lazy. They like to think they're efficient. Smarter than the rest of us. Which means he probably split whatever swarm this is in half, and sent it both directions. Get a map. We're two points of a triangle and we can find the third!"

Parsifal nodded, and gave his mother a hopeful look. Grabbed a pale Corcoran by the shoulder, and dashed off to find one of their maps.

Which left Ascheriit facing Robin's knowing look, as skeptical as every other villager who'd made it through years of war.

Ian Salt was the first to clear his throat and say it, absently stroking behind the ears of one of Barron's farm-dogs. "Köinzell. That's still a hell of a lot of Forest to search."

"I know," Ascheriit said grimly. "If there was just a way to narrow it down once we're in the right area..." He paused, gaze falling on where Sofia was fussing over Miss Cord. Who wasn't letting herself be fussed over nearly as much as you'd think, muttering something about not all the blood being hers-

_Oh, you wonderful, stubborn, opinionated woman_.

Letting Robin hold their exhausted small friends, Ascheriit walked over to her and gave her his best court-formal bow. "Miss Cord. Exactly how close to this bastard did you get?"


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Warning, some horrific imagery in here. The Übel Blatt 'verse can be a terrifying place.

* * *

It was the buzzing that woke Artur. Not the calm if sometimes ominous drone of a beehive, and not the annoying ragged-edge hum of flies swarming meat. This was a scattered buzzing. Start and stop. Here and there. As if he were in an unimaginably huge hornet's nest, and every once in a while one of the denizens was flicking its wings-

Artur blinked, eye to faceted eye with a wasp-like _thing_ half the size of a squirrel. And held very, very still.

"Hmm. You'll be one of the troublesome ones."

The frightening thing about the sorcerer, Artur decided, was how _ordinary_ he looked. Brown beard, neat brown hair pulled back with a silver clasp. Tunic, trousers, boots, a cloak; all in shades of blue and purple, with just a faint trace of embroidery at the edges. Like a slightly prosperous traveling merchant, who'd seen long days on the road but had never been too put out by them.

"I'd say it was a good evening, but I don't think either of us is taken in by pleasantries." Very carefully, Artur sat up. Not easy to do with chained hands and feet. But necessary, if he were going to get any kind of look around for the others.

_If he already thinks I'm trouble, I might as well be trouble. Could give someone else a chance_.

Though at the moment he wasn't sure who might have the strength to take it. Cages twisting in the breeze overhead were stuffed with frightened, wax-gagged fairies. His own head pounded like a three-day drunk, and he doubted any of the other chained adults and children he saw was any better off. Elsi looked more awake, but she was curled around Gurye like a tigress. Not that he blamed her for that, not at all. He'd rip out the bastard's throat with his teeth, if he could.

_I'll have to work to get that lucky_, Artur thought soberly, glancing at countless faceted eyes. The wasp-things were all over the walls; in places he thought they might _be_ the walls, especially the few larger ones near the size of a man. Wings were a ragged beat of buzzing, wafting the smell of vinegar and fear through the sorcerer's nest. "So what's a powerful man like yourself want with a tiny village like us?"

"A tiny village that dares to live in the Forest of Death." The sorcerer let his gaze rake over Artur, headband to chained feet. "An interesting diversion, on my way back to more civilized lands."

"If the Land of Shadows is what you call civilized," Artur said gravely, "I'm a mite worried to think of what you call barbaric."

"Oh, I've spent years dealing with that already." The sorcerer waved a hand in amused dismissal. "So many of you, championing the nobility of your Empire. And so eagerly turning to us, when that noble intent isn't enough."

"Well, now, that's something you'd know much more about than I," Artur said plainly. Keeping the anger to a muted roar in his mind, just enough to balance the fear of what this bastard might do with one fell curse. "No nobles in Right Here. Just a scattering of rag-tag refugees, who couldn't make it anywhere else." He shrugged, a clink of chains against the buzzing. "Not much to interest you at all."

"Oh no?" The sorcerer's lip curled in a genteel smirk, as he stalked toward Elsi. "Nothing at all, you say? With such a crop of elf-blooded to test and mold..."

Elsi put her back between him and the babe, blue eyes flashing fire. "Don't you dare touch Gurye!"

-And damn, but his ancestors must have been onto something after all. The sorcerer _stopped_.

"Gurye." The sorcerer didn't step back, but something in his voice told Artur he was considering it. "Rag-tag refugees, you said. Not noble at all."

He rounded on Artur, eyes black as his wasps'. "So what is the name of the lady of the Mansion of Swords doing here?"

_The lady of_\- Artur sucked in a breath, shocked. The Mansion of Swords; the finest sword-school in all the Empire. The stuff of heroes and legends. Why, tales claimed it as the school of at least four of the Fourteen Holy Lances, almost ten years gone now; Ergnach, Kfer, Glenn, and of course the legendary Blade Master Ascheriit-

_Almost ten years ago_.

"_I was part of a group that battled Wischtech forces."_

"_During the ghost watch, they murdered us all."_

No. Not possible. Köinzell was fae, no question of that; though possibly half-blooded. And all the Lances had been human. Even the orphan foundling who'd grown to become the legendary Blade Master-

The orphan who'd been _found in a basket_, tales said. By a blacksmith, with an ore of Fairytite resting by him no human hand could work. And Köinzell was a swordsman. Even bent and maimed, the best Artur or Robin had ever seen. And he'd spent years trying to get better.

_Trying to get back what he lost? Oh, gods_...

"You," the sorcerer hissed, "_know_ something."

"Know?" Artur didn't try to hide the quaver in his voice, as wasps crawled down the sorcerer's sleeves to tickle antennae against his throat. "I doubt I know anything. But I've a guess..." _Oh gods. Give me the strength to goad him. If he's after me he's not touching my girls_. "...You're about to have a very bad night."

* * *

The screams that echoed out into the night were high, shrill, and hopefully still human.

"Shutter the lantern. Corcoran! Hold that dog," Ascheriit said darkly, hand gripping Jakob's vest when the man would have rushed in. "Don't be a fool! If they're still screaming they're still alive!" _Gods. It was always Kfer who yanked me back from the brink. I wish I'd listened more_.

Jakob grimaced, but stopped, glancing behind him where a white-faced Robin had just dismounted from River's cranky back. Barely three days after Gurye's birth; Robin was a good enough healer to know she had no business riding through the Forest after dark, much less carrying a sword with intent to use it.

_She knows. But there's no way any of us could have convinced her to stay behind_. "Remember what we planned," Ascheriit said firmly. "Robin, you, Corcoran, and Miss Cord stay with River and the rest of the mounts. We'll get people out to you as soon as we can. Elsi's human. She'll have woken first, and if she's been careful," _and lucky_, "she'll be in the best shape to run. I'm counting on your sword to cover the wounded." _And may you have the strength to run if we fail_.

The rest of the town elders had still been yelling at each other when they'd left, but Ascheriit had warned them that if no one made it back by dawn, anyone left in Right Here should leave. Right next door to an angry sorcerer was no place for any sane soul to be.

"Dart. Moss." Ascheriit locked gazes with the pair of fairies clinging to River's pommel. They were a bit less ragged and exhausted, but he still didn't like the shadows under Dart's eyes. "Last chance to back out. If he lets loose more of that gas you're likely to get stepped on."

"How likely is that?" Sword in hand, Parsifal gave him a look that said he wanted to fast-rope Ascheriit, dump him across River's saddle, and send him and Robin back to Right Here at a dead run.

"Not very." Ascheriit tried to sound confident, instead of whistling in the dark. "If it works on humans he has to worry about getting hit with it himself. Otherwise he'd have been standing in the village laughing at us all when it came down." He hoped. Wischtech could mutate its users in unpredictable ways. Who knew what a sorcerer might be immune to?

_But none of them are immune to vanity. Sorcerers show off. It's what they do_.

Gods, this was such a bad plan. But if they hoped to save anyone they had to move now. There wasn't time for anything better.

And they weren't completely helpless. Not with the key Dart had brought with her: one giant, mutated, thoroughly stabbed wasp.

"Dart, you're on scout as we rush it," Ascheriit directed. "Moss-"

"How can she scout when she can't talk and it's going to be too dark for us to see her?" Ian hissed.

Damn. He hadn't wanted to mention this. "The moons are up. I can... feel her." Ascheriit didn't look at the miner. "Moss?"

The fairy healer smiled grimly, and raised a fist.

Group by group, eyes glinted in the dark. From every branch and tree, a swarm of furry spiders advanced.

"Oh, dear," Miss Cord whispered. Jumped at yet another shriek, shivering. "Oh, do hurry!"

Ascheriit took one more look at the house-sized structure before them. The underlying structure seemed more like twisted bone than wood; though it was impossible to be sure when everything was covered in wasps, linked leg to leg as if they'd woven themselves into a net to catch and slay intruders.

Sword out, Ascheriit took a breath, and closed his eyes.

_Calm. Be calm. Even with the moons up... no, especially with them up. If the moonlight calms you_, use it.

He couldn't use the Black Wing. That attack was only possible by someone who'd surpassed body and mind, and he still stumbled over a body that wasn't _right_.

But he was still Gurye's student. Still a child of the Mansion of Swords.

_Go!_

World clear, he leaped.

* * *

One sting wouldn't kill you, Artur now knew, trembling in his chains from shock and acid agony. It burned, it made you want to die, but one sting from the smaller wasps would not kill someone his size. Two was pushing it. And he really wasn't sure about three-

_No_, Artur realized, as Simon choked and collapsed, one of the man-sized wasps still clinging to him. _Three's definitely not good_.

He couldn't tell if the boy was breathing or not. Given the screams, part of him was hoping for not.

The body was still.

And then it _wasn't_.

One hand twitched. Then a leg. The wasp retreated, buzzing its wings as if in encouragement as dead flesh lurched to its feet.

_Simon's dead_, Artur thought, involuntarily shrinking back in his chains as far as he could get from that stumbling form. Elsi was dead white and silent, and he was pretty sure he'd heard a few survivors pass out from sheer terror. Damn, but he wished he could join them. _He's dead, I've seen death, that can't be_-

"The bigger the prey to feed on, the bigger the wasp," the sorcerer said coolly, standing by his monsters as wasp and victim walked toward him. "Of course, there are drawbacks. They only last as shamblers for about a week before they pupate and fly, and they _are_ wasps. I can't use them to infiltrate normal humans. Yet. I need more time to... tweak them." His smile could have cut glass. "Do you really not want to talk? Because if you don't, well - I can certainly find another use for you-"

Steel sang.

White and leather blurred between Artur and the monsters; the blacksmith blinked, and it was gone again, but the wasp was falling in two pieces, there was a crackle of a lightning-shield where the sorcerer had flung up paper charms, and he could _hear_ a thrum of fairy wings-

"_Rrrraugh!" _

Parsifal led the charge, and the air was full of wings.

* * *

_Damn. He's fast_.

Ascheriit hammered the lightning-magic from all sides, refusing to flinch as shocks traveled down his nerves. The sorcerer might look human, but his reflexes were monstrously fast; he'd severed three fingers off one hand even as the bastard flung up his shield, but so far he hadn't quite managed to get through any holes to separate the monster's head from his body _properly_.

And then there was the dead body to worry about. The _moving_ dead body.

_I hate Wischtech! _

He focused on that hate; hate and the maelstrom of rage and _protect!_ flowing from Dart and Moss. It was the only way to keep himself from weeping. He'd known this boy. Watched over him. Scolded him a time or two when he'd taunted the other children a step too far.

_I'm too late. Again_.

Teeth bared, he flung himself at the enemy.

* * *

Chains' rattle all but lost under the battle-cries, Elsi glanced up, then jumped as close to Artur as she could. "Catch!"

_What- ack!_ Artur yanked up bound hands just in time, cage of fairies bouncing off fingers and shackles instead of his head.

Dart followed it down, helping him grab and slow it before it could hit the ground too hard. Gave Artur a quick nod, and pointed at the steel mesh.

Artur eyed it swiftly, and nodded. Fairies were strong, far stronger than their size would ever let you guess. But it didn't help if they couldn't get leverage. "Elsi! Hold it. I'll brace her-"

Gripping the cage between her knees, Elsi nodded. Artur gripped the mesh, and pulled it taut.

Dart slashed down, knife as bright as a star.

* * *

_Parsifal and Jakob are keeping the wasps off_, Ascheriit thought, ducking lightning. _Ian's breaking shackles until we can find the keys, where is that damn smoke-?_

Round objects rattled in through wasp wings, and he heard the acrid hiss of sparks.

_Good, that'll give us cover; they may be monsters but smoke is smoke and wasps go away from fire_-

Dead eyes fixed on him.

_Boy... boy, I'm sorry_...

The body ran onto his blade, jamming steel in a cage of flesh and bone.

..._Oh hell_.

* * *

Freed fairies cut the hinge of Artur's shackles; he let bloodied iron drop, and caught up the last cage, where the littlest fairies were still in no shape to fly. "Elsi! Come on!"

Gurye cradled to her, crying at the smoke, Elsi glanced toward a flash of lightning. "But Köinzell-!"

He shoved the cage at her, slapping away wasps that were blundering their way through the smoke. "I'll get him! Go!"

_Ah, yes. And_ how _will I do that?_

Didn't matter. Köinzell would say that himself. What mattered was that she was running, with the youngsters, and - he'd try. "Ian! I need that hammer!"

* * *

"What in the worlds are you?"

"A dead man," Ascheriit croaked, buried under wasps. Gods, the stings burned, even in the thin trails of moonlight. But what really hurt was seeing his sword lurch away, carried by unfeeling flesh that still bled.

"Oh no. Not yet." The sorcerer crouched for a good look, apparently unfazed by either the loss of fingers or the choking smoke filling his lair. "Some kind of hybrid... whose work are _you?_"

"Wouldn't you-" Ascheriit gasped, as yet another stinger plunged home, "like to know-"

"_Köinzell!" _

_Parsifal!_ "Get back!" he croaked at the younger swordsman, struggling against too many gripping legs. "He's too fast for you, _get back-!_"

Chuckling, the sorcerer rose.

Smoke wisped away with his movement, letting moonlight show through the bones of the roof. The world slowed.

Sweat dropping from hair to cheek. A whisper of white paper, as the sorcerer pulled out another thunder-scroll. The gleam of Parsifal's steel, hurtling through wasp bodies toward where the sorcerer had been. The beginnings of a smith's roar, as Artur smashed enemies out of his way to get to them.

_They won't make it_.

_I need a sword!_

Under the skin of his right arm, something _squirmed_.

* * *

_Too many wasps_, Artur thought bleakly, struggling to keep himself from being stung again. A lost cause; they were all over him, all over Parsifal, and neither of them were going to get free of the creatures fast enough to live. _There's no time_-

Out of the wasps, darkness erupted.

..._The hell?_

He'd think it was sorcery, but whatever it was had just _impaled_ the sorcerer, inches away from slapping a scroll on Parsifal's sword. Paper fluttered away instead, exploding against the floor in a blast that sent wasps flying, and shoved both of them reeling back-

_Swords. They're_ swords.

Impossible black, sharp as obsidian; and he could swear to that, the wasps flying against the blade dancing to defend him were sheared apart in _pieces_, as if they'd flown into a glass-spider's cutting web.

_Shhhunk_.

Something round and brown and bloody rolled past his feet. Artur blinked at it, ears ringing. Blinked again.

The sorcerer's head looked incredibly surprised.

* * *

_Hurts_.

Ascheriit didn't know how many times he'd been stung. All he knew was that it burned, worse than fire. But he had swords, and somehow if he couldn't move they _could_, and there were so many enemies.

Black blades sang, and wasps fell in droves.

"Köinzell!"

Hands. Were those hands, grabbing him? He couldn't feel them. He could feel pressure but not hands, everything burned.

Strength bled out of him, and something crackled apart.

_No. Not now. I can't... sleep... now_...

* * *

Leaning on each other, Artur and Parsifal staggered out, dragging a leather-wrapped lump that Artur hoped was still breathing.

_At least it's not dark_, Artur thought distantly. _The fire's taking care of that_.

The fire, and something more. He heard the thrum of fairy wings, Robin's shouts to _cover your ears_-

A dozen fairies screamed.

The sorcerer's nest didn't so much crumble as _implode_, the force of fairy cries smashing it to bits of chitin and dust. Fire paused, then roared up higher, greedily sucking in air to complete the destruction.

_Good riddance_. "Everyone's-" Artur had to cough, and tasted wet smoke. "Everyone's out?"

"Everyone who's coming out alive," Jakob said grimly, helping them limp over to where Robin and Elsi were checking over survivors. "What happened to the sorcerer?"

Parsifal coughed himself, and grinned. "Köinzell."

"Hah!" Jakob reached down, brushing back the hood to smirk at their little half-fae swordsman-

Recoiled as if he'd been hit by lightning, scrambling away on hands and knees. _"Gods have mercy!"_

Artur sucked in a breath, determined not to add to that scream. He'd seen worse; accidents in a forge with molten metal were never pretty. But he'd never seen someone that blistered and misshapen and still _breathing_.

Dart fluttered down before he could stop her. Covered her mouth with her hands, green eyes wide with horror.

_Chirped_, one high sound that scratched his ears and made Jakob's tracking dog yelp.

Moss set down his tiny tools in Robin's hand, and hummed over to them. Hovered just above Köinzell's blistering flesh, and took a grim look.

Parsifal swallowed hard, cleaning wasp guts off his blade. "Is he going to be all right?"

The look in Moss' eyes was one Artur had seen too many times on Robin, tending those mortally ill. _I don't know_.

"Do what you can," Artur said gruffly. "For now - we make sure this place _burns_."

* * *

A/N: When you realize you could drop Xenomorphs into the canon world and the human denizens would just scream "Wischtech monster!" before proceeding to Kill It With Fire - well. Yikes.


	7. Chapter 7

Cold. And pain.

"Think Moss is saying to keep him warm..."

"-Wish we could actually _talk_ to them-!"

"Köinzell." Artur's voice. A smith's strong hands holding him; though he couldn't feel the roughness of Artur's hands, just a vague, painful pressure. "Try to drink something. All right? Just a little..."

Sweet. And salt. Grit; like ground cuttlebone?

_So cold_.

But that vibration through his skull was Dart humming, and she didn't want him to die.

Exhausted, he fell back into the darkness.

* * *

"I've never seen anything like this." Nursing Gurye at her breast, Robin watched Dart and Moss flutter around the warm nest they'd built in the forge, and frowned. "I don't think Moss has, either. He's guessing almost as much as we are."

"Almost?" Artur rubbed the knots in her shoulders, and glanced at Parsifal getting his sister to gulp down a sandwich before she dropped off into an exhausted slumber. Corcoran was already out on the small cot Artur had set up for anyone who had to keep a watch on Köinzell. Between the four of them they'd gotten Robin to rest a bit, but not everyone in the village had bounced back from the sorcerer's gas or the stings easily. Elsi wasn't the only one napping where and when she could. Everyone in the village who had any healer's training had been nursing those with lingering coughs and horrors. The fae children in particular had been slow to recover; apparently enough gas to put down their elders was almost enough to kill littler ones.

In some cases, it'd been more than _almost_.

Artur winced at the thought of last week's funerals, turning his mind deliberately to those who'd lived. Miss Cord was hosting most of the ill fae herself, much to his amazement. _And_ their spiders. Gwen was alternately squeaking at all the legs and running herself ragged making sure tiny fairies stayed warm and cared-for. The sickly little girl had never looked happier.

_When everyone's a bit stronger, I'll ask Cord about that_, Artur decided. _And maybe tease her for Gormbarkan stubbornness being weak against cute little fairy babes_. _But not now_. "So you think he's ways of knowing something about Köinzell we don't?"

"They can feel magic more than we do," Robin nodded, burping Gurye gently. "I think that's the only thing that kept Moss hoping, when... the dead flesh started coming off."

For a moment, Artur regretted getting his own sandwich. Just the thought was enough to roil a man's stomach.

Though Robin said it was actually a hopeful sign. Humans who'd been this badly poisoned would just die. But what she'd gleaned from Dart hinted that Köinzell might be made of sterner stuff. That instead of giving up and dying, his body had rejected the poisoned flesh; walling off wasp-stung tissue into layers of skin and muscle and shattered bone, and shedding them to save the rest of him.

The leavings had been enough to make even their tanner vomit, even though he'd never been about when the fairies dragged Köinzell's bloody carcass out into the moonlight to heal. But that bloody wreck was still breathing. And so long as he was, Artur was determined not to fail him.

"If only we could talk," Robin whispered, rocking Gurye asleep. "Really talk, not just guess at feelings and images."

"You're doing all you can, love." Artur kept rubbing, slow and gentle. "Köinzell knows that. Gods, if anyone's blaming themselves, he is. I'd bet you a week's salt he thinks if he'd been faster, Simon would be alive."

"We couldn't have come any faster," Robin admitted, eyes almost tearing. "We had to make the smoke-bombs, if we hadn't had those you all would have-"

"Shh. Robin. I know."

Wings thrummed. Dart hovered in front of Robin, then perched on her arm to peer up like a curious owlet.

"You must talk to each other somehow," Robin mused. "You understand us. And Köinzell knows what you're saying-"

Dart held up a hand, and shook her head.

"He doesn't?" Artur would have started, but that might have woken Gurye. "But he seems to understand you so well."

Dart smiled, and patted her hand over her heart. Pointed to Köinzell's nest, and tapped her hand again.

"So Jakob was right, he feels you?" Robin frowned. "But if he's fae, why can't he speak the way you do to each other?"

Dart's smile dimmed. She gestured toward Artur: _give me your hand_.

Curious, he reached around Robin, and held it out in grabbing range.

Dart pointed toward her ears, and held out a hand to wiggle her fingers. Pointed toward his ears, and then his hand. Stepped forward, wrapping her right hand around his index finger, then pulled his ring finger against it with her left.

"Artur?" Robin said softly.

This close, he could feel just a flicker of the images Köinzell had always described, warm with the pulse of Dart's heart. "Fae. And human. And fae. And human," the smith said quietly. "The sorcerer thought Köinzell was a creation."

Dart yanked her hands away, back stiff with indignation.

"Easy, lass. We both know he was wrong," Artur nodded. "But in a way he was onto something, wasn't he? That's why the poor lad's such a mess. The longer he's with us, and you, the better he's gotten. But call on that magic of his and he starts going to pieces again. He's part fae _and_ part human, and the two sides haven't been getting along, have they?"

Dart took a deep breath. And nodded.

"How's that even possible?" Parsifal joined their little huddle, Elsi blinking blearily as she hung onto his shoulder and a crust of bread, evidently forcing herself to stay awake to learn about her most serious patient. "You either have elf blood, or you don't. You can't point to your ears and say that part of you is fae. It doesn't work that way..." Parsifal trailed off as green eyes stared at him. "Does it?"

Dart was silent, unmoving. Winced, and flew off toward the nest and Moss.

"Does it?" Parsifal repeated, shuddering as he looked at them. "Human bodies don't work that way!"

"They don't," Elsi agreed. "But you remember Uncle Artur's stories. Things patched together by Wischtech, things that shouldn't be real." She paled. "And if it can work that way for fairies - no wonder the sorcerers want them!"

"Hush now," Artur warned her, mindful of the apprentice sleeping in the corner. Corcoran might yet grow into a good smith, but he didn't know if the boy would be family. And at his age, the youngster didn't need dangerous secrets. "We'll talk about this more when Köinzell can tell us." If he'd tell them anything. If what Artur thought was true - if he really were one of the Holy Lances - then the man had damn good reason not to want those who'd betrayed him to learn he yet lived. "My, that looks like quite the argument."

Dart was shaking her fist at Moss, and looked half a breath from either decking him or pulling out his hair. On his part the fairy healer was hefting a polished blackthorn staff a head taller than he was, as if he were about to put a patient to bed the hard way.

Dart pointed at Köinzell. Pointed at them. Spread her hands, pleading.

Moss heaved a sigh.

_This is a bad idea_, Artur translated that set of fairy shoulders as Dart leapt into the air and zoomed to Elsi to tug at her crust. _But it might help my patient, so we'll do it_.

"What do you want with my bread?" Elsi wondered, breaking off half the crust for the scout fairy.

Dart winked, and flew off to the nest, disappearing inside with Moss and the bread. Reappeared almost a minute later, flickering across the forge to land on Artur's hand.

He stared at the crust, now stained with five deliberate drops of red. "Ah. Lass. I'm thinking your friend Moss might be right, and this isn't the best idea."

Dart bit her lip. Tapped her hand over her heart. Deliberately tilted it toward him.

"Artur," Robin said, very quietly, "what happens to Right Here and Dart's colony if Köinzell dies?"

"He's not going to," Elsi said hotly.

"He's a swordsman. Unless he's lucky, he'll always lead a dangerous life," Robin told her firmly. "Right Here lost three souls from the sorcerer's evil, and the fairies lost four. But neither of us would have gotten _anyone_ back alive if we hadn't worked together. We need each other as neighbors. And that means we have to be able to talk to each other." She gave Dart a rueful smile. "At least as well as Köinzell can understand you."

Dart nodded. And rested her gaze on Artur.

"Well, then," Artur sighed, breaking the bread into five pieces, one for each of his family. "If we're allies, then I trust you know what you're doing."

* * *

_Ow_. Ascheriit blinked, feeling like someone had sandpapered the backs of his eyeballs. _I hurt everywhere. _

_...Where am I?_

Iron and coal; the warm air smelled like the forge, though there was an odd tang of herbs in the air. And Artur didn't make a habit of keeping soft cloth and furs like those wrapped around him near the anvil. Sparks flew too easily.

Near him, he could hear soft breathing.

With an effort, he sat partway up. Blinked and squinted at golden braids just peeking out from under a blanket; one with an odd streak of white in the gold. "Elsi?"

"Hmm?" A hand crept out from under woven wool, reluctantly lifting away covers from bleary blue eyes. "'S not time to go change bandages yet- _Köinzell?_"

Blankets went one way. The cot clattered another. Strong arms wrapped around him in a trembling hug.

"It's all right," Ascheriit said gently, as Elsi hugged him and cried. "It's going to be okay."

Not that he was at all sure of that. Elsi's arms wrapped all the way around him, as if she were holding a child. And he felt far too light.

_When did I get so small? _

* * *

"I hope Parsifal's old clothes fit well enough." Robin ladled broth into everyone's bowls, adding more substantial fare to everyone else's. "We weren't sure what would be the right size."

"It's fine." Köinzell gripped his spoon carefully, drinking broth down a slow sip at a time.

Artur tried not to hold his breath, and nudged Parsifal to kick Corcoran under the table so the boy would stop staring. They had to begin as they meant to go on, and while Köinzell might look barely ten years old, the man inside that body was older than Parsifal. So they had to treat him as a man.

...Just a rather short one.

_At least the bath helped_.

Well, it'd helped as far as scrubbing off the last remnants of skating too close to death for anyone's comfort. And the clean blue tunic and pants made Köinzell look less twig-thin, and more as normal as a long-eared half-elf could; hiding the tiny feathered wings, setting off pale skin and braided white hair to the point the youngster looked downright...

Ah well. There was no getting around it. The youngster was _cute_.

He had the sneaking suspicion that was starting to sink in for Köinzell, too, if the way the tiny swordsman mournfully fingered the braids Elsi had put in was anything to go by. Artur wondered if the man had actually been _grateful_ to see his scar in the mirror.

_That stayed with him, when everything else healed. Why? _

So many questions. And he meant to get some answers, if Köinzell didn't go face-down in the soup first.

Now if only Corcoran would stop sneaking glances at Köinzell as if he thought the half-fae might catch on fire.

Deliberately ignoring the youngster, Köinzell tore a small roll into bits, using them to sop up the last of his broth. "I think I remember killing the sorcerer. What happened afterward?"

"Oh, the usual," Parsifal said wryly. "Things catching on fire, wasps brought down by hunting spiders, the rest of us running around like chickens with sacks to beat to death anything that got out of the ruin after the fairies wrecked it." He paused. "We lost your sword."

"A sword's a sword. I can always forge another."

Artur tried not to let his brows bounce up too much at that. He was a good blacksmith, and a fair weapons-smith in a pinch, but he _knew_ the work that went into making a sword. You could spend a lifetime and not think you'd mastered it.

_But I know of one man who did_.

His much smaller friend rested his hands on the table, as if no one had noticed thin fingers shaking. "How many died?"

"Seven," Robin said simply. "Three from Right Here. Four of Dart's people. And don't you start!" she raised her voice as Köinzell looked stricken. "You did what you could, and you almost died saving us. That was a Wischtech sorcerer! We're lucky any of us are alive."

"But I've-" Köinzell cut himself off, and looked away.

_Aha_. Put that together with what he already knew, and Artur thought he could guess what was behind that flash of guilt. "When you can walk from the bath to the forge without falling over, we'll visit the graves," Artur stated. "I think we're just blessed Trader Vaan got here on time. We'd damn near run through the cuttlebone treating everyone who got stung."

"Cuttlebone?" Köinzell started.

"That's what Moss told us." Elsi smiled, even if it was still a bit worried. "Dart's people have dealt with wasps before. Smaller ones, but - he says something in the stings hurts people in the bones. So we fed everyone bone broth. I think it pulled people through the worst of it."

Red eyes narrowed, concerned. "He talked to you?"

"The way Dart talks to you," Artur nodded. Though they could talk that over more later.

"It's creepy," Corcoran muttered.

"Corcoran." Robin frowned at him before Artur could.

"Well, it is, ma'am," the teenager insisted, shoving around a last bit of gristle. "How do you know what's you and what's _them?_"

"It helps to be lost out in the Forest with only yourself to blame," Köinzell mused. "We could try that, if you like."

Corcoran blanched.

"Ah, a bad joke." Köinzell shrugged wearily. "You're not nearly well enough trained for that. Yet." His smile had just an edge of mischief. "We can work on that."

"I'm - um - going to be really busy in the forge tomorrow, lots of stuff to get to, now that you're out of it - may I be excused, ma'am, Master Artur?" Corcoran blurted all in one breath.

"Get some sleep," Artur agreed. "Tomorrow will be a busy day."

"Right!" Tipping his bowl into the dishpan, Corcoran bolted.

Artur waited until he'd clattered all the way up to the apprentice's loft to snicker. "You did that on purpose."

"Well... just a bit?" Köinzell looked almost innocent. "You have the look of a man who wants serious talk."

True enough. He'd seen Köinzell's gaze flicking to white hairs that hadn't been there before the sorcerer's raid. But best to start with something a bit simpler. "_Who's_ going to forge another sword?" Artur looked his friend up and down, from ten-year-old height to tiny feet.

Köinzell looked just a little pink. "I've been forging swords since I was five."

_Erk_. And oddly, not surprising. It fit what he'd begun to suspect, after all.

"I know I'm years out of practice, but-" he held out thin arms, and shrugged. "At least now everything's in the right proportions. I can do it."

"Who let you in a forge at five?" Parsifal said in disbelief.

"The blacksmith who adopted me." Köinzell folded his arms, and gazed right back. "I know it won't be cheap to get the steel."

"Vaan brought some interesting billets," Artur shrugged. "And I won't argue that we need the weapons, if you can-"

Köinzell was on his feet before the clatter reached Artur's ears, even if he was hanging onto the table to stay standing. "The back porch."

_Ting! _

"Fairies' bell," Robin stated, at Köinzell's startled look. "They were in and out of here so much looking after you, we decided it was just easier to make sure they could get our attention from outside."

"You stay put," Artur nodded, already heading that way. "If it were trouble, they would have rung more than once."

He glanced out the peephole in the back door anyway. No need to invite trouble.

_Hmm. Looks clear_.

Opening the door, he glanced down, and blinked at the triumphant pose of Dart and four other hunting fairies atop a freshly defleshed dragon skull. "Well, now. I think our friends found the sorcerer's dragon."

Grinning, Dart held up a familiar dagger, almost as tall as she was.

"They did indeed," Artur chuckled, accepting steel with a polite bow and waving them all in. "Dart found your knife."

"Good," Köinzell nodded as Artur headed back to the table. "The last thing we need is for one of his fellow flesh-warpers to come tying up loose ends-"

A needle to a magnet, Dart sped to his cheek.

At this distance Artur could only catch the over-wash of emotions, even with Dart's gift. But there was relief, and caring, and something he couldn't quite place, except that it was trembling and fear and hope and wonder.

Then he sat down by Robin again, laying steel on the table so he could take Gurye and let her fuss over the fairies, and knew.

_This is a life I saw come into the world. Let me do this right_.

And didn't that open a whole new treasure chest of trouble?

Especially given what had happened these past two weeks. He'd talked over what they'd heard, and hadn't heard, with Robin. Together they'd decided what to ask if Köinzell ever woke. He just had to find the courage to say it.

_Not as easy as it looks, that_.

But the fussing was dying down, and Artur screwed his courage to the sticking point. "You talked a bit, while you were raving out of your head. Not much," he added at Köinzell's sudden look of panic. "Elsi, Parsifal, even Corcoran - they all knew you were a swordsman, and you'd been in battle. But they didn't know the names."

"Names?" Köinzell was pale, even with Dart stroking his ear just as an older sister would to soothe a frightened elf-child.

"Hmm." Artur nodded. "Ergnach. Güsstav. Glenn." He paused, deliberately. "There were more. Thirteen of them, Robin and I'd heard before, though I don't think the younger half of the family remembers." He glanced at his children, Pieter's children, then back at Köinzell. "Thirteen. But there was one name you never said. And that would have made fourteen."

Elsi still didn't understand. No reason she should, she'd been far too young at Rielde-Velem. But Parsifal sat up straight, and looked at Köinzell in sudden shock.

"Fourteen names, for the Fourteen Holy Lances," Artur said quietly. "Köinzell. Who are you, really?"

* * *

_Who am I?_

He looked at small fingers, and felt Dart's slow strokes of _here, safe, care about you_. Twitched his back, and felt the nerve-wracking flutter of tiny wings.

_I never wanted wings. Humans don't have wings. _

_...But I'm not human anymore, am I?_

A human wouldn't sense Dart's hum of _happy, relieved, youngling finally well_. A human wouldn't relax under a fairy's touch with the sense of _kin_. A human wouldn't drink in the love and worry in Robin's hand stroking white hair; the frightening, heady mix of _saved my child, belongs with us_.

"A month ago I would have known what to tell you," he answered. "But I think I would have been wrong." He'd faced Wischtech and sorcerers and even a giant or two. He could do this. "Ten years ago, I was Blade Master Ascheriit."

It was a good thing everyone was sitting down. It looked as if he wasn't the only one who'd have trouble staying on his feet.

"How?" Parsifal said numbly. "I mean, the Fourteen Lances went out to stop Wischtech, and... the war stopped..."

"The winter before we found you," Artur stated. "About the time you found us, if Vaan's tales of the Empire are right." Rocking Gurye, he shrugged. "It'll be a hard tale no matter how you tell it. We've enough bad memories of our own to know that."

So they did. He'd heard dozens of tales of Pieter as Elsi and Parsifal had grown up, to the point he missed a man he'd never known. The healer who'd died at Rielde-Velem had done his best to be a good man and look after his children, and he couldn't think of a higher accolade to give a living soul.

_The Empire needs more people like that. Not heroes_.

"Fourteen Holy Lances," he mused. "Fourteen young warriors - or so I'm sure the tales say. I wonder if they tell you Barestar was a merchant's son, or Schtemwölech was a mountain bandit pardoned to fight. But so far as I knew we were all willing, and I believed... _I believed them_, when we swore to fight, and accomplish our mission, and return alive."

Robin drew closer to her husband. Elsi's hand found her brother's, as Dart watched them all, green eyes sad.

"Of course, we didn't," he went on. "You were at Rielde-Velem; you know Ergnach perished there. If I'd known what he meant to do, that he meant to root all the power of that fell fortress _in himself_-" He couldn't go on.

_But I have to_.

"Three of us died before we ever reached the borderlands," he said softly. "Eleven of us carried the Lances across the seal, into the Land of Shadows. Nothing else traversing that mystic passage survived. Our mounts died under us, even as we rode."

Elsi shivered.

"And then we were on our own in the Forest of Death," he said plainly. "Not the tame parts, like here. The parts where many-eyed giants roam, and fell beasts are around every corner, and your sheep wouldn't survive out there unless they had fangs and steel wool."

Dart glanced at the rest of them, and nodded.

"Eleven of us lived," he mused. "But seven of them... couldn't go on. I think Lebelont was the first to crack. He was terrified of what we'd stumbled into. What could a mere eleven warriors do against the whole Land of Shadows? He wanted to turn back, and he convinced Glenn, and that convinced... most of the others." Simply. Just the bare bones of facts. Not the whirlwind of rage and _hate_ that still iced through him. "Four of us went on. Kfer. Güsstav. Krentel. And me."

_Keep going_.

"We accomplished our mission. We returned. We met the others on the edge of the Forest... not that far from here," he stated, glancing to the east. "They welcomed us, and then-"

Fingers closed on the polished edge of the table, trembling. He could see the hooded cloaks. The gleaming blades. The mocking, manic grins.

"-Then they laughed like madmen, as they _murdered us_."

Under his hands, oak _cracked_.

"They said the glory and accolades should go to those of noble blood, not foundlings and wild folk from the disputed lands," he said numbly. "And we should just give up and die. But I... I refused to die. They maimed me..." Against his will, one hand lifted, almost touching his scar. "They tore me apart. And then, when I still wasn't dead, they tossed me into a ravine, like so much rubbish, and left me to die." He took a breath. "But I didn't. I lived. I won't tell you how; I'm not quite sure myself. Dart probably knows more than I do." He glanced at familiar faces, and the new streaks of white in hair too young for it. "And it looks like you already know... something."

"We know a bit more than we did," Artur allowed, nodding at Dart. "Though if Right Here and the colony are going to stay allies, I suspect some things are going to have to stay very quiet. There's a world of difference between a gift freely given, and someone wanting to take it."

_I will not flinch_. "I don't think it was a gift," he said, very quietly. "When I regained my senses, something had already happened."

"Something a bit more serious than a drop of blood on bread, I'm guessing," Artur said gravely.

"Yes." _So blood will do as well. Is that what sorcerers are after?_ The thought of a sorcerer being able to heal as well as he had was terrifying. "I don't think I was in my right mind. And once I was..." He couldn't find the words. The rage. The betrayal. The _guilt_. "You know the names of the Lances. But I'm not sure you realize who they are. Noble, yes. But even without fame, they are people who will inherit incredible power over vast stretches of the Empire. If they come to that power, if they're willing to build our land on lies, betrayal, and murder..."

_They wouldn't be the first. If Artur knew even half of the secrets I know of the Empire... we need to be_ better _than our past. Or why even bother fighting Wischtech?_

His hands were shaking. He braced them against each other, unwilling to break more of Robin's table.

"I have to stop them. Even if I'm not the man I was, I have to kill them."

"Hmm." Artur looked him up and down. "Might be a bit of a tall order at the moment."

He stared at Artur. And he was not going to look at Elsi's shy grin, or Parsifal's stifled snickers. _I'm telling you I'm set on cold-blooded killing, and you're making short jokes?_

"We've done a lot of talking with Dart and Moss," Robin nodded. "They think your mixed blood was fighting itself. Now, it's stopped." She raised a brow newly threaded with white. "If you want my guess, based on my past examinations and what I see now... your body had struck a truce between the two bloods, but they weren't cooperating. And every time one side gained an advantage, the other tried to tear it down." Reaching out, she brushed the back of one small hand. "But this time you almost died. And if you attack reluctant allies with a stronger enemy... well, they might decide they're not so different after all."

_Oh_. It hurt. But at least Robin had tried to make it a clean cut. "So you think I'm right." Gods, it wasn't easy to say. "I'm not Ascheriit anymore."

"If Ascheriit's only the human swordsman who went off to save the Empire and die for it? No, lad. I'd say not." Artur's eyes were cool, unflinching violet. "But if Ascheriit's the man who held to his vows, and lived to honor them, and never turned aside from evil no matter what the risk - you haven't lost him, Köinzell. I doubt you ever could."

It did hurt. But so did the surgeon's knife, cutting away sickness. Robin wasn't the only healer in this family. "Köinzell?"

"You know how Dad's clan is about private names," Elsi said firmly. Pieter would always be _Da_, it seemed, but Artur had more than earned _Dad_. "He made sure we had them too. What's wrong with Ascheriit being yours?"

Parsifal nodded. "Not to mention, if you march into the borderlands saying you're Ascheriit-"

"They'll think I've gone mad?"

"Maybe," Parsifal said, undaunted. "But what if they think you're not?"

_Oh_.

"Nobles, Köinzell," the young man went on. "You're after nobles. You're the best swordsman I've ever seen, but nobles have armies. And assassins. And the money to get a lot of both."

"A valid point." He managed to unclenched knotted knuckles. "Even if I get back some of my skill, I can't kill whole armies on my own. I did try it. Once." On the way to the Forest of Death. Gods, all those young faces, wiped out by a Wischtech giant just to give the Lances a chance...

He took a breath, and tried to push the past back. "And I don't want to kill our armies. It wouldn't be their fault that they're bound to madmen." He glanced around the table, realizing something rather important. "Why aren't you trying to talk me out of it?"

"One of my old sword-teachers told me something years ago, before I ever met Pieter," Robin said gravely. "You should never try to kill a man - and miss."

"He tends to take it personal," Artur nodded, eyes glinting mischief. "Mind, if you tried haring off now, I'd sit on you." He nestled Gurye back into Robin's arms, freeing a hand to tick off fingers. "You've no sword. You've no armor. And no matter how skilled a sword you are, you've lost nigh a foot of height, and how long has it been since you've fought at this size?"

"All very good points," he admitted. "But none of them can change what I have to do-"

Dart poked his ear, then leaned against his cheek.

_Moons setting and rising, Summer leaves coloring with autumn, swept away in winter, budding out in spring. An elf-child striking at targets in the sun, slowly growing taller_.

He blinked. "Are you seriously telling me to grow up first?"

Elsi covered her mouth with both hands, cheeks glowing red. Parsifal didn't even try to hide his snickers. Robin and Artur traded grins. "Just a bit," Artur allowed. "Until you can show me how a master forges a sword. Köinzell."

"Fair enough." _Köinzell_. He sighed, and leaned on Elsi when she scooted her chair closer; tired, but feeling more at peace than he had in years. _I think I could like that name_.

* * *

A/N: This world isn't scientific, but if you were going to take any of the biology in here as actually working - yes, a bit of a shock is exactly what's needed in an embryo chimera to get the two sets of cells to treat each other as normal.


	8. Chapter 8

_3989 A.D., month of the oracle_.

_Do not ruin your knives. Stone is harder than steel. Normally you could let your magic carry into the blade and cut through the impossible; as the best swordsmen do, whether they know it or not. But right now you don't have a drop of magic to spare. Do_ not _wreck your knives_.

Lucid thoughts. Reasonable thoughts. Köinzell almost ignored them to attack the statues again anyway, snow stinging his eyes. Snow. Not tears. He refused to shed tears now.

_Statues. Glorious monuments to the glorious_ Seven Heroes.

His breath hissed hot through clenched teeth, even as he shook from the chill wind. He'd had to use the Black Wing to take down the airship's commander; the moons were down, there'd only been one slim moment when the maschinendrache had dropped low enough for him to survive a crash, and nothing else could have carried him through the Wischtech marines fast enough. But it had cost him. Bleeding inside, magic drained, and shrunk. Again.

_Hopefully Dart's right, and I'll recover faster this time... gods, at this size the wind goes right through you_.

He stared one long moment more at Glenn's statue. Proud. Heroic. You'd never know those hands were stained with the blood of betrayal.

Deliberately, Köinzell turned his back.

_Get inside with that trapper. Get warm. Tomorrow, plan. _

_It's going to be a long walk home_.

* * *

"And that should help break up the dye-house's outline from above." Parsifal peered up at the camouflage netting half his family had just finished pinning into place. Grinned at Artur, then turned to their smallest helper. "Want to take a look, Dart?"

Resting on Sofia's shoulder, the scout fairy glanced up, then took off, soaring through gaps in the netting to get a good look from the sky.

The beekeeper followed her for a moment, then sighed. "She's still so _sad_."

"She misses Köinzell," the smith nodded. "We all do."

"It's been almost two months." Elsi ran a finger over one of the net ropes, eyes straying now and again to where Gurye and the other village children were playing with spiderwebs under Miss Cord's watchful eye, as Robin thumped a teenage Gwen on the back and listened to her lungs. Between fairy magic and human healing the girl had mostly grown out of her hay fever, but Robin always kept an eye on her lungs in late winter. "I hate to say it, but..."

"He might not have gotten out of this one, no," Artur said gravely. Damn Wischtech and damn airships; at least now, after _three_ sorcerous incidents, the village had finally decided they were going to take a leaf from their fae neighbors' books and make it so Right Here was a lot harder to spot from the air. Camouflage netting over buildings, breaking up some of the fields with various grumpy trees and vines from the Forest, and bits of magic and mayhem to make the roads and paths look more like convenient animal tails wending through stream and stones. "But look at it this way, lass. If that airship made it where it was going, why hasn't it come back?"

Which was the reason Artur hung onto hope, no matter how much it hurt. Sorcerers, monsters, and treacherous nobles hadn't managed to do in the young swordsman. He doubted an airship could carry enough swords or sorcery to keep Köinzell down.

Though they could have hurt him. Badly. And Köinzell didn't heal well without moonlight.

_He could have gotten buried somewhere. Hells, they went north; he could have been frozen in a block of ice for all I know_-

Gurye stumbled over her spiderweb skipping rope, and almost sat down hard in one of the patches of melting snow. She let go of one wooden handle, neat blue dress speckled with sun and shadows from the nets as she gazed northeast. Pointed ears poked through white-blonde hair, almost twitching.

_Our daughter looks more elf than I do_, Artur mused, not for the first time. _Parsifal and Elsi - they've had violet eyes ever since that night. I wonder; tales give all sorts of origins for elf-bloods, but I do wonder. Are we all just humans with a touch more fae than most?_

Gurye dropped the rope, dashing away like a beehive was on fire. "Dad! Mom! He's here he's here he's _here!_"

_What? _

Parsifal raced after her, long legs giving him the speed Artur couldn't manage if his life depended on it. Artur limped after them both anyway; surely, she couldn't mean-

There was a small figure trudging out of the Forest, wrapped in furs, with knives at his belt. The pale-furred hood hid his hair, and weariness dragged at his stride, but nothing could erode a swordsman's balanced stance as he moved. And Dart was headed toward him like a singing arrow.

"_Uncle Köinzell!" _

The swordsman caught them both like he might catch stray bolts; swift and sudden, lifting Gurye away from anything that might do her harm, even as he tossed back his hood so Dart could grab his hair and shake a worried fist at him. "Hello, little one."

Catching up, Artur looked down into tired red eyes. "Well," he said gruffly, trying to still all the worry that had gnawed at him these past weeks. "And where have _you_ been? You missed sugaring time!"

"We saved you some!" Gurye hugged him tighter. "Wren an' the other big kids tried to get it all, but I didn't let 'em!"

"I bet you didn't." Köinzell looked up at both men; gaze tired, with the embers of banked rage still burning in it. "I have a lot to tell you."

* * *

_3991 A.D., spring_.

Four rough cairns, fallen with time and the blows of nineteen winters. Each with a simple carved stick buried in the stones; enough to mark them, but a curious passerby would have to disturb the graves to read the names. And most wouldn't be foolish enough for that.

Köinzell stared at the pitiful cairns, not needing to shift wood to remember who he'd buried. _Kfer. Güsstav. Krentel_.

And one whose name he'd never known, assuming the moon-fae had even had a name as humans thought of them.

"You were barely alive yourself." Artur rested a hand on his armored shoulder, opposite the one Dart was perched on. "I don't think they'll mind."

"Will you look after the graves?" Köinzell said quietly.

"Every spring. We'll take care of them. We'll remember." Parsifal strode forward to study the pale wood in Kfer's cairn, then looked back at him. "But it would be better if you did."

"Parsifal..." He wanted to say something hopeful. He'd watched this boy grow into a fine young man, and a swordsman Miss Gurye herself would have been proud of. No Blade Master, no - but Parsifal had the heart to know _when_ to fight. And when not to. "The odds of my making it back... aren't good."

_I'm going to kill the Emperor's son. And a half-dozen other Heroes, all beloved by the Empire. No. My odds aren't good at all_.

"And what were the odds of beating the Land of Shadows, then?" Artur said shrewdly. "Don't you go giving up before the mission's over, Blade Master Ascheriit."

"Heh. I suppose I deserved that one." Köinzell tapped the blade at his side, testing how it would draw at need.

"That had damn well better be a masterwork, or I'm hauling you right back to the village over my shoulders, see if I don't," Artur grumbled.

"It is," Köinzell assured him, smiling just a little. The smith wasn't joking. For all his elven blood Artur was no small man; and while Köinzell had managed to grow a bit over the years, it was beginning to look as though he'd never even get close to five feet tall. "It's no Fairytite blade, but..." His left hand tapped his right bracer. "I do have a _bit_ of an extra edge."

Fae magic. Not something a Blade Master should ever have to depend on.

_I don't care. This is more important than my damn pride. Blade Master's just a title; Master Ludift said it himself. I'll use what I have to, when I have to. They have to die_.

"Only when the moons are up," Artur reminded him. Tilted his head back and looked over the armed and armored swordsman, knife-ended braids to booted feet. "You look like King Daren right out of the history books. Only with pointy ears."

The Slayer of a Hundred Kings, over two thousand years ago. Köinzell grinned. "What, did you think that was an accident? If I'm close enough for them to see me, I want them to _know_ what's coming."

"Because panicked people make mistakes," Parsifal muttered. "Don't panic, okay?"

"I assure you, I have a great deal of practice in not panicking," Köinzell said wryly. "And I have a bit more on my side than you might think. The Fourteen Holy Lances weren't just weapons. We were given... various pieces of information not known to most in the Empire." Weapons placements. Secret passages. Knowledge of who held the keys to some of the Empire's darkest secrets. "After all, if you're meant to defend a place, you have to know what those defenses _are_."

He lifted his left hand to his shoulder, so Dart could step onto it and they could see each other face to face. "You still have a prior claim, my lady. I told you I wished to live to avenge my friends. And I do. But there's a very good chance I might fail; or succeed, and die in the doing of it. And then you'd never have your own swing at me."

The scout stared into his eyes, then shook her head, green hair waving like ferns.

_Kin_, sang through his heart, even with the moons weakened by daylight. _Friend. Be well. Be safe_.

"Safe is the last thing I'm looking for," Köinzell said softly. "Be well, Dart." He watched her flit off, then shouldered his pack. It was going to be a long, muddy walk.

_I don't want to go. I don't want to leave. _

_But I swore. And I will do it_.

"Oh, Köinzell," Artur called after him.

Still walking, he slowed, and glanced back.

The smith winked. "Remember. _Short_ doesn't matter, if the lady's got a bed!"

Despite himself, Köinzell broke out laughing.

* * *

_The Borderlands, 3992 A.D_.

An army. Part of an army, at least, flying the Black Wing and Sword crest the Emperor had awarded to the Blade Masters. The crest his past months investigating the borderlands and tracking down shreds of rumor said now belonged to the Four Traitorous Lances, returned from Hell itself to plague the Empire once more.

"I think," Köinzell said to himself, very softly, "I am _annoyed_."

A battalion of a hundred, slow-marching through the valley below, carrying loot and a few weeping women. Laughing and joking, as if there were nothing at all in the world to threaten them. Under a banner they should never have dared to _touch_, much less fly.

And the moons were bright tonight.

Smiling fiercely, Köinzell leapt down among his enemies.

-_End_.

* * *

A/N: Much of the impetus for this fic was that for a guy who'd supposedly been lost in the Forest of Death for decades, Köinzell seems remarkably well-adjusted and sane. (Apart from the whole Roaring Rampage of Revenge, at least. As someone once said, "Violence may not be the answer, but sometimes it's the only possible response.")

Based on what I know, people don't come out of being almost tortured to death that sane without a _lot_ of help. And war creates refugees, and sometimes those refugees will try to sneak into places no sane person would try to live, just so they stand a chance of being left alone. So Right Here isn't at all canon. But I haven't found any canon info that says it _couldn't_ exist. If that happens to change, given canon is still in progress... well, I've been jossed before, and AUs are always fun, too.


End file.
